Namal Rajapaksa, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna National Organiser held in remand custody over the Airbus investigation, is due to attend parliamentary sittings on Tuesday, September 8, after arrangements were made to bring him from prison to the chamber.

The MP wrote to Secretary General of Parliament Kushani Rohanadeera on Monday requesting the facilities needed to take part in the coming sittings, Ada Derana reported. The Secretary General in turn wrote to the Commissioner General of Prisons asking that arrangements be made to produce him at Parliament, the Daily Mirror reported.

Parliament sits from September 8 to 11.

Remanded until September 18

Rajapaksa was arrested by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) on September 4 after several hours of questioning, and remanded until September 18 by Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama. The order followed submissions from Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara for CIABOC and from the MP’s lawyers.

Because the remand period runs a full ten days past the end of this sitting week, the request concerns a recurring problem rather than a single day: a sitting member cannot vote or speak from a prison ward, and the four days from Tuesday are the first Parliament has met since his arrest.

The case

The investigation concerns the acquisition of aircraft for SriLankan Airlines in 2013. Earlier allegations in the same matter involved former airline chief executive Kapila Chandrasena and his wife, Priyanka Niyomali Wijenayake, over an alleged USD 2 million bribe tied to a proposed purchase of six Airbus A330 and eight A350 aircraft.

Chandrasena was arrested on March 12 and later released on bail. He was found dead on May 8, in circumstances police suspect may have been suicide. Open warrants have been issued for Wijenayake, named as the second suspect, and for Shamindra Rajapaksa, the third suspect, in the case before the Fort Magistrate’s Court.

A delegation from Airbus’s parent company in France visited Sri Lanka in the first week of August and gave statements to CIABOC — evidence a deputy minister said last week had been given on four separate occasions.

Around the remand

The Department of Prisons has separately confirmed that Rajapaksa may receive home-cooked meals and up to three visitors a day, with special security in place around his ward at the Colombo Remand Prison. The SLPP has called the remand political revenge.

Update, September 7: prisons confirms the escort, and a second account of the routing

The Department of Prisons has confirmed the arrangement. Media spokesperson and Prison Commissioner Senaka Palletenna said Rajapaksa will be escorted to Parliament, Hiru News reported, answering whether prisons had agreed to produce him.

Hiru attributes the permission to the Speaker rather than to the Secretary General, and describes a different route for the request: it says the SLPP wrote to Speaker Dr Jagath Wickramaratne in a letter sent through the Opposition Leader’s Office, seeking permission for Rajapaksa to attend the coming sittings.

Ada Derana and Daily Mirror described the request as coming from Rajapaksa himself to Secretary General Kushani Rohanadeera, who then wrote to the Commissioner General of Prisons. The two accounts are not necessarily inconsistent — a party letter to the Speaker and a member’s letter to the Secretary General could both exist, and the Speaker’s authority over the chamber and the Secretary General’s over the arrangements are different things — but no outlet reconciles them, and we are recording both.

Update, September 8: permission confirmed as the House sits

Ada Derana confirmed on Tuesday morning that permission has been granted for Rajapaksa to attend the day’s sitting. Parliament convened at 9.30 a.m. under Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne, opening a four-day sitting week that runs to September 11.

Not reported

No outlet says whether Rajapaksa will attend all four sitting days or only Tuesday, or what security or escort arrangements apply inside the chamber once he arrives. None cites the standing order or statutory provision under which a remanded member is produced at Parliament.

Sources