Danushka Gunathilaka’s trial hit by delay
Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka will push NSW’s public prosecutor to pay legal costs after being made to wait another two weeks to submit a plea for rape charges.The 32-year-old is facing four counts of sexual intercourse without consent while in Sydney for the T20 World Cup.
After matching on Tinder, meeting up for a date and heading back to her home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, the complainant alleges the cricketer refused to wear a condom and choked her three times.
A police fact sheet filed with the court said the woman “was fearing for her life and could not get away from the accused” during the November 2022 incident.
The prosecution successfully applied for the adjournment, which will take the hearing beyond the statutory six-month requirement for charge certification, at Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday.
Gunathilaka’s lawyer Alen Sahinovic opposed the delay, arguing his client was being subjected to undue hardship as a foreign citizen with strict bail conditions and limited familial and social support. Sahinovic will apply for the Director of Public Prosecutions to pay legal costs at the next hearing.
Gunathilaka travelled to Australia with Sri Lanka’s T20 World Cup team last year but only played in their first game before being ruled out of the competition with a hamstring tear.
He was arrested in the early hours of November 6 at Sydney’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, shortly before he was scheduled to board a flight home with the rest of the team after they bowed out of the tournament.Gunathilaka remains on bail ahead of a committal hearing at Downing Centre in Sydney on May 18.
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Sri Lankan spinner Prabath Jayasuriya, who performed well in the test series against Ireland, has gone up in the ICC rankings.
He has managed to advance six places to the 13th place by securing 721 bonus points.
He has also been included in the three recommended names for selecting the player of the month in April.
Meanwhile, Ramesh Mendis has moved up 10 places to the 22nd position with 626 points.
Although the Sri Lankan team for the Asian Youth Netball Championship to be held in South Korea has been selected, it has not yet been approved by the Sports Minister.
Accordingly, the training activities have been halted.
The sports minister’s approval has been delayed since a group of parents of some players who were not selected have continuously submitted petitions accusing the selection process.
Most of these petitioners are the parents of athletes from a school in Kurunegala from where the coach has also been selected.
Since the school she coached won the championship in the inter-school netball tournament, the coach had argued with the selection committee that the Sri Lankan youth team should also include more players from her school.
She had reportedly incited the parents of the players and had also used several journalists for this purpose, Sri Lanka Mirror learns.
This group of journalists had recently brought four or five petitioning parents in front of the Ministry of Sports and arranged to hold a protest. However, it did not receive enough publicity from any major media institution.
Meanwhile, the Netball Selection Committee has said that it will resign if the Sports Minister orders to conduct the selections once again.
If that happens, the experts said that the Championship will be over by the time a new selection committee is appointed and new selections are made.
Sri Lanka Cricket’s Head of Internal Audit Prasanthi Wijesinghe has resigned a few days ago.
Several media outlets raised suspicions whether her sudden resignation was related to the forensic audit conducted by the Auditor General’s Department in Sri Lanka Cricket on the order of the Sports Minister.
However, in a press release issued yesterday (02), SLC said that her resignation had no relation to the audit.
Meanwhile, sources at the Auditor General’s Department said that arrangements have already been made to complete the forensic audit report and submit it to Parliament, and that Ms. Wijesinghe can be re-summoned if any re-investigation is required in the future.
