Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa will not appear before an anti-bribery commission investigating allegations that he may have illegally induced a rival to support his campaign during the recent presidential elections. Rajapaksa will ignore a summons to appear on April 24 because the exact nature of the complaint and the person making the allegations have not been disclosed, Rohan Weliwita, Rajapaksa's media adviser, told Reuters. "He is consulting his legal team on the summons," Weliwita said. The allegations are the latest in a series of corruption charges made against Rajapaksa by Sri Lanka's new government, which has ordered an investigation into all the financial deals he made during his decade in power. Rajapaksa is accused by his rivals of unfairly pressuring opposition leader Tissa Attanayake to back his campaign. After Attanayake supported Rajapaksa's presidential bid in December, he was appointed the health minister. Opposition politicians and civil society organisations have in the past accused Rajapaksa of recruiting rivals by offering them bribes. Rajapaksa has denied these allegations. More than 50 opposition legislators on Monday protested in parliament and wrote a letter to President Sirisena objecting to Rajapaksa's summons.
