A team of officers from the CID visited the Lankadeepa office at Hunupitiya Cross Road this morning (28) to question the Editor-in-Chief of Lankadeepa and its correspondents regarding the statements made by the former Executive Director of the Consumer Affairs Authority, Thushan Gunawardena.

In a series of media interviews, Gunawardena revealed a number of cases of corruption and misappropriation involving Sathosa, which comes under the purview of the Ministry of Trade.

However, the team of investigators left the Lankadeepa office immediately after the Lankadeepa Editor-in-Chief informed them that they were not prepared to respond at this time.

The CID officers left the Lankadeepa head office claiming that they would return at another date to record the statements.

The Lankadeepa newspaper said the informaton revealed in those articles and news items was based on the views expressed by Thushan Gunawardena, who had resigned from the Consumer Affairs Authority.

The decision to grill journalists over the matter has come under criticism from a number of media rights organisations. Lankadeepa is the most widely-circulated Sinhala newspaper in Sri Lanka.