Sri Lanka arrests astrologer who falsely predicted President's death

  2017-01-31 

COLOMBO, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigations Department, on Tuesday, arrested a local astrologer who predicted that President Maithripala Sirisena would die before January 26th.

Astrologer Vijitha Rohana Wijemuni was arrested for allegedly misleading the public by making false predictions, police said.

He is expected to be produced before a local court later today.

In December, Sri Lanka's Media Ministry secretary Nimal Bopage told a media briefing here that the astrologer's predictions had been circulating on social media, thus the police force was ordered to launch a investigation into the "conspiracy".

"This man claims to be an astrologer and he is predicting that the President will be killed by January 26," Bopage had said.

"We have alerted the police to carry out a criminal investigation because we suspect this to be part of a wider plot to assassinate the president."

The astrologer is former Sri Lankan navy sailor Vijithamuni Rohana de Silva who served two and a half years in prison after he was convicted of attempting to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1987.