Kasun Gayathra Wickramakarulu Arachchi: Sri Lankan drug dealer faces deportation after second WA jail term

A Sri Lankan pizza shop owner who dodged deportation for threatening two men with a gun over a drug debt again faces the prospect of having his visa revoked, after being sent back to prison for dealing. Kasun Gayathra Wickramakarulu Arachchi moved to Australia in 2009 to study accounting and had two daughters with an Australian woman, securing a partner visa that allowed him to be a permanent resident. But after them relationship broke down, Wickramakarulu Arachchi became addicted to drugs and began dealing. In 2019, he started racking up criminal charges, the most serious being a violent home invasion that earned him a jail term of more than two years. Armed with a pistol and a silencer, Wickramakarulu Arachchi went to the home of a man he and a co-offender had been threatening to bash and shoot, repeating the threat as he pointed the gun at the victim and his elderly father. The accomplice hit the younger man over the head with an iron pole in an attack District Court Judge David MacLean described as “terrifying”. Wickramakarulu Arachchi had his visa revoked after his release from prison and was sent to Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre but successfully fought his return to Sri Lanka in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In the tribunal’s decision, it was noted that he planned to go back into the pizza shop business, having previously worked in the sector. But the decider was the best interests of his daughters, who he would no longer have any meaningful involvement with once deported. “That is clearly an incentive for the applicant not to return to a life of drug and alcohol abuse and crime,” the decision read. However, in December 2023, Wickramakarulu Arachchi was caught with more than 11g of bagged-up methylamphetamine and almost 150g of cannabis, as well as cash and other drugs, doing a night-time deal in an Alexander Heights carpark. Then 11 days later, while out on bail, he again came to the attention of police while driving around Morley. He swabbed positive for meth and had almost 800g of cannabis on him along with weapons and other incriminating items. At his sentencing on Thursday, defence counsel Mark Gunning told the court his client sold drugs to support his meth habit. “He did try to come to this country with best intentions,” Mr Gunning said. “But I guess the harsh reality is, not everyone who migrates to Australia makes it. “The consequences for him are very heavy.” Mr Gunning said his client’s permanent residency would be reconsidered, which may “play on his mind”. Judge Wendy Hughes said drugs had been the downfall of the 36-year-old and he was now at an age when he should appreciate the risks. He had been “prepared to disseminate harm into the community”, she said, handing him a two-year jail term, with eligibility for parole.