A Facebook post from Patali’s media secretary as “Sajith: president

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As the presidential election in Sri Lanka approaches, a surge of misleading information targeting opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and his supporters is being spread across social media platforms. These false claims and edited content aim to discredit Premadasa, a prominent candidate in the upcoming election.

Social Media Posts

A recent social media claim stated that Patali’s(Champika Ranawaka) media secretary had posted a Facebook post on his profile with the statement, “Sajith President—Patali Prime Minister.”

Facebook | Archived Link

An article was published on the ‘Lanka Truth' website regarding the same incident, as seen here. Archived

Explainer

First, we checked whether Mr Leshan Probodha Widanagamachchi, MP Patali Champika Ranawaka's media director, had made such a statement in the mainstream media. However, none of the mainstream had reported such an incident.

We also checked Leshan's Facebook account, other social media accounts and archives to see if he had made such a statement. Still, we could not find a post stating, “Sajith President—Patali Prime Minister.”

However, Najith Indika posted a YouTube video, including a purported screenshot of Mr Leshan Prabodha posting such a statement on his Facebook account, as seen below.

Also, commenting on the video, we noticed that Leshan had replied from his official Facebook account, denying the accusation and stating that he would take legal action against the fabricated post created by Najith.

As a result, we contacted Mr Leshan Prabodha regarding the above incident. He stated that he had never posted such a statement saying “Sajith President—Patali Prime Minister" on his profile and that Najith Indika was spreading false information through a false post.

We also inquired with Najith Indika to find out the cause of this post, but no reply has been received so far.

Also, Mr Leshan has complained to the Election Commission regarding Najith's accusation and stated that he had already taken steps to report the malicious act to the cybercrime division in Sri Lanka.