Honored Female Isn’t One After All

A business leader once named Sri Lanka’s top female entrepreneur of the year is under investigation for impersonation, after police learned she was a man operating under a female alias.

Police arrested the man this month after he was betrayed by a relative who had been blackmailing him for years, said his lawyer, Panduka Keerthinanda.

The lawyer said his client was born male, but a hormonal condition meant he developed as a female.

“She looks like a woman. She talks like a woman,” he said.

The lawyer admits that Sattambige Sriyaratne failed to follow all the legal requirements in changing his name to that of a woman.

As such, she was named Sri Lanka’s female entrepreneur of 1995.