Deputy Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Ruwan Senarath said officials from Airbus have travelled to Sri Lanka on four occasions across three separate visits to give evidence in the investigation into the SriLankan Airlines aircraft procurement deal, NewsFirst reported.
The figure is not new — but the speaker is
The substance of that claim was already before court. On 4 September, Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara told the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court that senior Airbus officials had visited Sri Lanka on three occasions and provided four statements, along with documents, and that Airbus’s parent company had agreed to assist the investigation.
What is new is that a serving government deputy minister is now setting out the prosecution’s case in public, three days after Namal Rajapaksa was remanded until 18 September. Senarath’s formulation — four occasions across three visits — restates the court account, in which the four figure referred to statements rather than trips.
What Senarath alleged
Senarath said funds had been transferred into an account belonging to the wife of former SriLankan Airlines Chief Executive Kapila Chandrasena, and that the money subsequently reached businessman Nimal Perera. He said evidence now indicates that Rs. 100 million was handed by Perera to Namal Rajapaksa.
Chandrasena and his wife Priyanka Neomali Wijenayaka have separately faced charges over an alleged US$2 million payment linked to the same aircraft transaction.
Perera’s account is contested. At the remand hearing, Rajapaksa’s lawyers challenged his credibility directly, noting that neither French officials nor Airbus itself had said money was given to Rajapaksa. Perera, who lives in Australia and declined to travel to Sri Lanka citing death threats, gave evidence by affidavit.
The political argument
Senarath was responding to statements by the United National Party criticising the arrest. He noted the Airbus investigation began in 2015, when Ranil Wickremesinghe was Prime Minister under the Yahapalana government, and that the aircraft deal was cancelled during that administration — at a cost, he said, of US$116 million in compensation.
He questioned why parties were now defending Rajapaksa when the investigation had originated during their own time in office.
The UNP has argued that arrests will not deter public acceptance of politicians. Wickremesinghe has separately accused the government of pressuring the bar, the medical profession and the clergy.
Not reported
NewsFirst did not say where or in what setting Senarath spoke, and gave no direct quotation. It did not say when the four Airbus statements were taken, or whether the US$116 million compensation figure comes from an official source — no outlet has previously published that number. It did not report any response from the UNP, from Rajapaksa’s lawyers or from CIABOC, and the account rests on a single newsroom: Ada Derana, the Daily Mirror and Hiru News had not carried the remarks at the time of writing.
