Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka denied bail in Sydney court on rape charges
Sri Lankan international cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka has been refused bail by a Sydney magistrate after he was charged with raping a woman in the city.
Gunathilaka, who is in Australia for the T20 World Cup, was arrested at his central Sydney hotel in the early hours of Sunday and refused bail by a court later that day.
The left-handed batsman, 31, made an application for release on Monday but it was denied by magistrate Robert Williams who noted Gunathilaka had no criminal history.
Outside court, the cricketer’s defence lawyer Ananda Amaranath called the decision “disappointing”, adding his client was considering appealing to the New South Wales supreme court.
The bail application was made in closed court after the police prosecutor was granted an order suppressing the facts of the case against the 31-year-old.
The suppression motion was opposed by Amaranath and senior counsel Stephen Coombs for Nationwide News. But the magistrate granted an interim order closing the court on
Monday.
Gunathilaka has been charged with four counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
He spent a night in custody at Surry Hills police station before appearing in handcuffs and a grey T-shirt via video link at the Downing Centre local court on Monday.
“Yes sir,” he told the court when asked if his video link was working.
Gunathilaka travelled to Australia with Sri Lanka’s T20 World Cup team but only played in the team’s first game, a loss against Namibia, before being ruled out of the competition with a hamstring tear.
The Sri Lankan national was holding up well in police custody, his lawyer told media outside court.
“He has the full support of the Sri Lankan high commissioner and the Sri Lankan cricket board. So he is OK,” Amaranath said.
Sri Lanka Cricket announced on Monday it would conduct its own inquiry and Gunathilaka would be penalised if the court found him guilty in Australia.
In the meantime, he has been suspended from all forms of cricket with immediate effect.
“Sri Lanka Cricket wishes to emphasise that it adopts a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for any such [alleged] conduct by a player and will provide all the required support to the Australian law enforcement authorities to carry out an impartial inquiry into the incident,” it said in a statement.
Sri Lanka bowed out of the T20 tournament on Saturday night after losing their final match to England. Gunathilaka has played nearly 100 T20 and one-day internationals for Sri Lanka as well as a handful of Tests.