Boddhiya Baduge Dilan Priyanjan Anslam Perera, MP (born 19 April 1962) (known as ''Dilan Perera'') is a Sri Lankan politician. Current Member of Parliament for

Badulla District Badulla District ( ''badūlla distrikkaya''; ''Patuḷai māvaṭṭam'') is a Districts of Sri Lanka, district in Uva Province, Sri Lanka. The entire land area of the Badulla district is and has a total population of 871763 as of 2024. The d ...

, he was the former State Minister of Highways, State Minister of Housing and Samurdhi, Non-Cabinet Minister of Port Development, and Deputy Minister of Justice.

Early life and education

Born to Marshal Perera, PC and Daya Perera, he was educated at

Royal College Colombo Royal College, Colombo also known as; Royal Colombo, Colombo Royal College or Colombo Royal) is a boys' school located in Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Started by Joseph Marsh in 1835, it was established as the Colombo Academy by Si ...

and studied at the

Sri Lanka Law College Sri Lanka Law College (abbreviated as SLLC), formerly known as Ceylon Law College, is a law college, and the only legal institution where one can enrol as an Attorney-at-Law in Sri Lanka. It was established in 1874, under the then Council of Le ...

Political career

Perera entered politics in 1988, when he was elected to the Uva Provincial Council and served as leader of the opposition from 1993 to 1994. He was elected to parliament in the 1994 parliamentary elections and was served as Deputy Minister of Justice, Constitutional Affairs, Ethnic Affairs and National Integration between 1999 and 2000. Having been re-elected or appointed to parliament from the

national list The National List (, ''Reshima Mamlakhtit''), sometimes translated as the State List, was a political party in Israel. Despite being founded by David Ben-Gurion, one of the fathers of the Israeli left, the party is one of the ancestors of the mo ...

, Perera had served as Deputy Minister of Ports and Aviation, Deputy Minister of Media and Communication, Cabinet Minister of Estate Infrastructure, Minister of Ports and Ports Development, Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare and State Minister of Highways.

Controversies

In February 1997, he was involved in a shooting with political rivals in which parliamentarian Nalanda Ellawala was killed. In September 2018, he was accused of being linked to a person arrested in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

for

human smuggling People smuggling (also called human smuggling), under U.S. law, is "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries' laws, ...

, a link he strongly denied. That same month, he publicly admitted that some of the

LTTE The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; , ; also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam ...

soldiers and civilians who surrendered in the Sri Lankan Civil War had been killed by Armed forces.

Family

Perera was married to Saroja Sirisena, who served as Sri Lankan Ambassador to Germany and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

References

External links

Biography on Parliament's website
Government ministers of Sri Lanka Sinhalese people Sri Lankan lawyers Sri Lankan Buddhists Alumni of Royal College, Colombo Members of the 10th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 11th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 12th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 13th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 14th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 15th Parliament of Sri Lanka Members of the 16th Parliament of Sri Lanka Living people 1962 births People from Badulla {{UvaLK-politician-stub