Sri Lanka’s Consul General to Sydney, Australia “Ambassador” Bandula Jayasekera has requested permission to return to Colombo cutting short his tour of duty, Colombo Telegraph learns.

Bandula Jayasekara

Jayasekera who was formerly Presidential Spokesman was posted to Sydney as Consul General in November last year.

Before ending a year in his new position, Jayasekera has expressed a desire to return to Colombo, sources told Colombo Telegraph, but President Mahinda Rajapaksa has turned down the request.

The President instructed Jayasekera to complete his two year term before returning to Sri Lanka.

The Consul General who refers to himself as ‘Ambassador’ Bandula Jayasekera, even though Sri Lanka has a High Commissioner to Australia, Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, was granted the diplomatic posting as a means to “promote” him out of the Presidential Secretariat where he was becoming increasingly troublesome, the sources said.

Jayasekera has nominated himself Sri Lanka’s propagandist and protector in chief on the social media network Twitter and regularly engages other users who dare to voice dissenting opinions, calling them agents of the LTTE or Tiger Mercenaries.

One Government source quipped that Jayasekera was requesting an early return because he was missing the ‘action’ in Colombo, where he can resume his machinations within the regime instead of being cut off from anything of significance in Sydney. In August Jayasekera arrived in Sri Lanka with a business delegation and inserted himself into several Government functions and overstayed his holiday, the source said. He is believed to have lived at state expense at a five star hotel, Kingsbury Colombo during his extended ‘official’ holiday, Government sources said.