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Thilanga Sumathipala, Sri Lanka's embattled former cricket chief, has been released from police custody after being granted bail by Sri Lanka's Court of Appeal on Friday. The three-judge bench asked him to post a Rs 250,000 (US$ 2500) bond and retained his passport as a security. Sumathipala, a high-profile businessman who recently resigned as chairman of Sri Lanka Telecom, was arrested in January after police investigations into allegations that he helped a suspected underworld criminal, Dammika Amarasinghe, travel to England to watch the 1999 World Cup on a forged passport. Amarasinghe, a man implicated in 28 murder cases, was later shot dead by a gunman dressed as a lawyer while attending court for another case. Sumathipala spent over 150 days in police custody but avoided a prison stay, spending the entire spell in hospital after complaining of chronic back pain and other ailments. He did not stand for re-election as cricket board president in the annual elections in March, but the new cricket board wants him to be an international envoy and their ICC representative.
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