President’s Media Secretary Vijayananda Herath has said that it was Director General of the President’s Media Unit, Bandula Jayasekera who had released some false photographs to the local media of the President shaking hands with the head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II at the Commonwealth Summit.

Vijayananda Herath had made this comment when several senior members at the Presidential Secretariat inquired about the reports in lankaenews and gosspilanka that the photographs of the President shaking hands with the Queen were fake.

Bandula Jayasekera had taken several journalists from the private media institutions known to him and Ranjan de Silva from the President’s Media Unit to cover the summit of the Commonwealth heads of state. The President’s photographer Sudath Silva and Vijayananda Herath had participated separate to this group.

The Queen had hosted a dinner for the heads of the Commonwealth states and the event was not open for any outside photographers. The event was covered by the Commonwealth photographers. At the end of the programme, it was the Commonwealth Media Unit that had provided the photographs to the respective media heads of the heads of state.

However, the photographs received by the Sri Lankan head of state had not included a photograph of the President shaking hands with the Queen. There had been a photograph of the President shaking hands with Prince Philip.

Bandula Jayasekera had said it was important to publish a photograph of the President greeting the Queen in the local media and had asked Ranjan de Silva to immediately prepare such a photograph.

Ranjan had then got the help of several persons with good computer knowledge and had prepared the photograph using photoshop.

Previously, Bandula Jayasekera prepared a fake photograph of the President together with the US President Barrack Obama during a UN summit and released it to the local media.

Vijayananda Herath has told the staff at the Presidential Secretariat, “Bandula has messed things up for the second time.”