Was Ranil Wickremesinghe seated in a front row seat during the graduation ceremony of the University of Wolverhampton?

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As the hearing of the case filed against former President Ranil Wickremesinghe resumed, various discussions have begun circulating on social media. Against this backdrop, we examined a series of social media posts claiming that President Ranil Wickremesinghe was seated in the front row during a graduation ceremony held in the United Kingdom.

Social Media Posts:

A photograph of Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe receiving her degree was shared on social media, along with a statement from Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris.

These posts claimed that, despite Dileepa Peiris stating that the former president was seated in the balcony during his wife’s graduation ceremony, he was actually seated in the front row.

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Below can be seen a few more posts with the same intent.

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We then decided to verify the accuracy of the claim.

Fact Check:

The case against Ranil Wickremasinghe over the misuse of more than 16 million rupees of public funds for attending his wife’s graduation ceremony in the United Kingdom resumed recently.

We decided to begin the fact-checking with the statement of Additional Solicitor General Dileep Pieris.

Additional Solicitor General Dileep Peiris

We examined the coverage of this case in the ‘Hiru’ news on January 28^th. During the report, Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris says that, as per a statement obtained from the UK Embassy, Ranil Wickremesinghe had been seated in a balcony seat and had not been invited to the stage, as seen below.

Following this, we turned our attention to the second part of the viral posts.

Examining the official video of the graduation

On August 22, 2023, Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe was awarded an honorary doctorate during the graduation ceremony of Wolverhampton University. This was awarded in recognition of her extensive research, training, and policy work on gender equality.

The very incident was streamed live on the University of Wolverhampton’s official YouTube channel on August 22, 2023as seen here.

The frame shown in the viral photograph circulating on social media can also be seen here in the video.

The video shows Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe receiving her honorary degree from the then Vice Chancellor, Professor John Raftery. She later delivered a brief speech.

We then reviewed the full video from the beginning to check if Ranil Wickremesinghe was indeed sitting in one of the three front row seats, as social media posts claimed.

In reality, it was the Chancellor, not Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was seated in the front row!

At the beginning of the video, the person who was sitting in the alleged ‘front row seat’ is introduced, and Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe can be seen seated behind him. The video can be seen here.

The introduction states that the person in highlight is Lord Swaraj Paul of Marylebone, the Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton.

The video clips can be seen here.

In the video, Lord Swaraj Paul can also be seen giving a recorded speech, in which he mentions the presence of President Wickremesinghe.

This confirms that the person seated in the front row, as shown in social media posts, was not Ranil Wickremesinghe but Lord Swaraj Paul.

Lord Swaraj Paul of Marylebone had served as the Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton since 1999. He passed away in August 2025, as announced on the university’s official website.

Where was Ranil Wickremesinghe actually seated?

A statement from the London Embassy noted that Ranil Wickremesinghe was seated in a balcony seat. We checked the official university video to confirm this.

Before the graduation ceremony started, from the back of the upper gallery, former President Ranil Wickremesinghe could be seen here. Alongside him was likely Sarojini Siriwardene, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to the UK at the time.

The specific video segment can be seen below.

The honorary degree was first awarded to Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe. We then checked the upper gallery scenes in the full video.

After Professor Wickremesinghe, the degree was awarded to another guest of Indian origin. Following his brief speech, several guests could be seen leaving the auditorium like this.

The video also shows the chancellor, Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe, and others, including Ranil Wickremesinghe, exiting from the upper gallery.

This confirms that Ranil Wickremesinghe was seated in the upper gallery during the ceremony.

We also checked the venue of the ceremony, which is the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre. The seating layout shows that Ranil Wickremesinghe and others were seated in a box area to the left of the stage.

The present condition of the case against former President Ranil Wickremesinghe

Ranil Wickremesinghe was taken into custody in 2025. This was due to the accusation of his misusing public funds to attend his wife, Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe’s, graduation ceremony in the United Kingdom. He was later granted bail after being held in remand for several days.

A team of officials went to the UK to investigate the matter. Based on the information they collected, the case was reheard recently.

Additional Solicitor General Dileep Peiris said that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to the UK cannot be considered an official trip. He added that the investigation is now almost complete. The remaining steps will be finished within a month, and the case is expected to proceed in court by March.

However, President Wickremesinghe’s lawyer, Tilak Marapana, said that the investigation team had not yet obtained statements from university officials. He argued that these statements could show that Wickremesinghe had received an official invitation.

Peiris responded that, for the visit to be official, there must be involvement from the UK government.

The judge noted that, based on the evidence so far, the visit appears to be a private trip except for one case and also ordered the court to obtain the university’s statement about the invitation via online means as soon as possible.

Former President Wickremesinghe’s secretary, Saman Ekanayake, was presented to the court as a suspect. The Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court ordered him to remain in remand until February 11. Former President Wickremesinghe is scheduled to appear in court again on April 29.

The new reports regarding this could be found here, here and here.

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Conclusion :

Therefore, our investigation proves that the viral claims of Ranil Wickremasinghe sitting in the front row during Professor Maithree Wickremasinghe’s graduation were false.

The person seated in the front row is the late Lord Swaraj Paul of Marylebone, who served as Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton for many years. Ranil Wickremasinghe was seated on the left side box of the upper gallery.