Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa has been formally named a suspect in the money laundering case arising from alleged financial irregularities in SriLankan Airlines’ procurement of aircraft, NewsFirst reported.
The Criminal Investigation Department filed a motion in court on the instructions of the Attorney General. Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris, appearing for the Attorney General, told the Fort Magistrate’s Court that Rajapaksa had been named a suspect in the ongoing case. The court was told the step followed the Attorney General’s instructions and a joint investigation into the transaction.
Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena ordered that Rajapaksa be produced before court on 16 September.
Two courts, two files
The development closes a question left open when the Attorney General first directed the CID to name Rajapaksa a suspect on 12 September: no date had then been reported for when the motion would be filed or called. It has now been filed and acted on within two days.
The distinction between the two proceedings matters. Rajapaksa is in remand custody until 18 September on a separate matter — the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption arrested him on 4 September, and Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga Bodaragama remanded him over an alleged bribe of Rs. 100 million — the rupee equivalent of US$800,000 routed through Singapore accounts, according to submissions by Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara.
What has now happened is separate: the MP has been brought into the older CID money laundering file in the Fort Magistrate’s Court, the case built around former SriLankan Airlines chief executive Kapila Chandrasena, who died in May. His 16 September appearance falls two days before his current remand expires.
Rajapaksa denies wrongdoing and has said the government is attempting to attribute unexplained wealth cases to the Rajapaksa family.
Not reported
NewsFirst does not say what specific transactions the money laundering allegation covers, what sums are involved in this file as distinct from the CIABOC bribery allegation, or whether the two cases will be consolidated. It does not report any submission by Rajapaksa’s lawyers at Monday’s proceedings.
Ada Derana also filed on the development but was unreachable behind a CloudFront block. Neither the Daily Mirror nor Hiru News had the story on their listings at the time of writing, so this account rests on a single accessible source.
Update (16 September)
Rajapaksa is to be produced before the Fort Magistrate’s Court today as ordered, NewsFirst reported early on Wednesday morning. The outlet confirms the appearance concerns the CID’s money laundering case over alleged financial irregularities in SriLankan Airlines’ aircraft procurement, and that the MP remains in remand custody until 18 September on the separate CIABOC matter.
Hiru News also filed on the appearance, and adds a procedural detail neither NewsFirst report carries: the order was directed to the Superintendent of the Colombo Remand Prison, which is the mechanism by which a remanded prisoner is produced before a second court.
Hiru also states more explicitly than NewsFirst that Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris instructed that Rajapaksa be named a suspect in both files after reviewing the investigating officers’ submissions — the case before the Hulftsdorp Chief Magistrate’s Court and the case before the Fort Magistrate’s Court. That confirms the two proceedings described above are being run in parallel rather than merged.
The Daily Mirror adds that police heightened security around the Fort Magistrate’s Court premises ahead of the appearance, reporting at 9.56 a.m. that the measures were in place before he was produced. It gives no reason for the deployment, no indication of its scale, and does not report any incident, protest or gathering at the court.
None of the three reports is an account of the hearing itself — all were filed before it. What was said in court on Wednesday, and whether the Fort Magistrate made any further order, had not been reported by any verified newsroom at the time of writing.
He was produced
Later on Wednesday, Hiru News reported that Rajapaksa had been brought to the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court by prison officers, in accordance with the order previously issued by the court. The case was to be called before Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena.
This is the first report confirming the appearance actually took place rather than announcing it in advance. It remains short of an account of the hearing: what was submitted, what was said and whether any further order was made had not been reported by any verified newsroom at the time of writing, and the Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing carried no item on the outcome.
The report also uses the spelling Pasan Amarasena for the Fort Magistrate — the same spelling Hiru and NewsFirst have used throughout, against the Daily Mirror’s “Pasan Amarasekara” in earlier filings. The split remains unresolved in the reporting.
Remanded until 23 September, with bail reserved to the same date
Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena ordered Rajapaksa remanded until 23 September after hearing submissions on Wednesday afternoon, the Daily Mirror, NewsFirst and Hiru News all reported. All three agree on the magistrate, the date and the order.
The order is not a simple adjournment. The Daily Mirror and Hiru both report that the Magistrate said his ruling on the bail application will be delivered on 23 September — so the remand runs until a bail decision rather than until a further hearing on the substance. NewsFirst does not mention the bail application at all.
Two details appear in only one account each. Hiru names Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara as the officer who told the court that Rajapaksa has been formally named the fourth suspect. The Daily Mirror gives the file he was added to: the case already pending before the Fort Magistrate’s Court against former SriLankan Airlines Chief Executive Kapila Chandrasena and his wife over alleged bribery in the aircraft purchase. That is the first report placing Rajapaksa inside the existing Chandrasena proceedings rather than in a new file of his own.
The Daily Mirror also confirms the parallel-track structure described above from the bench’s perspective: when the case was called, it was submitted that Rajapaksa had already been remanded by the Colombo Chief Magistrate in connection with the CIABOC investigation into the same Airbus transaction, and he was produced before the Fort court through prison officials.
The date he was named is now reported three different ways
The three accounts do not agree on when Rajapaksa was named a suspect in the Fort Magistrate’s Court file.
| Account | Date given |
|---|---|
| NewsFirst, 16 September | named “on September 13” on AG’s instructions |
| Daily Mirror, 16 September | ”steps had been taken on September 11” to name him fourth suspect |
| NewsFirst’s own report of the naming, 14 September 2:54 pm | magistrate made the order “today” — the 14th |
| Hiru, 16 September (earlier filing) | “day before yesterday” — the 14th |
The 13th was a Sunday. The Daily Mirror’s 11 September is new and is described differently from the others — as the date steps were taken to name him, which may refer to the Attorney General’s instruction rather than the court order, two separate events that the reporting does not distinguish. No outlet acknowledges any of the other dates. The 14 September date, supported by two contemporaneous filings, remains the one used above for the court order itself.
Still unreported by any verified newsroom: what Rajapaksa’s lawyers submitted, what sums the money laundering file covers as distinct from the CIABOC bribery matter, and whether the two proceedings will be consolidated.
One discrepancy to note, now partly resolved. Wednesday’s NewsFirst report states that Rajapaksa was named a suspect “on the 13th.” NewsFirst’s own report of the naming, published at 2:54 pm on 14 September, says Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena made the order “today” — that is, on the 14th, a Monday. The 13th was a Sunday. Hiru’s Wednesday report dates the order to “day before yesterday”, which is also the 14th, supporting the contemporaneous account. The 14 September date is the one used above.
What was actually said in court — the money laundering file rests on the same money
A fuller account of Wednesday’s hearing published by NewsFirst answers two of the questions left open above.
The first is what the money laundering file covers as distinct from the CIABOC bribery matter. On the prosecution’s account, it covers the same money. Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara told the court the case concerns alleged bribery in SriLankan Airlines’ procurement of 16 wide-body aircraft from Airbus — the same transaction behind the Chief Magistrate’s Court file. What separates the two is the statute, not the sum.
The DSG set out why two files now exist at all:
“Previously, there was no legal authority under the Bribery Act to investigate offences relating to money laundering. However, under the newly enacted Anti-Corruption Act, those powers are now available to the Bribery Commission as well. Accordingly, this is a joint investigation being conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department and the Bribery Commission.”
That describes a joint CID–CIABOC investigation running the same facts under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the Fort court and under bribery law in the Chief Magistrate’s Court. Whether the two will be consolidated was still not addressed.
The trail the DSG described matches the one set out at the 4 September remand hearing: €1.454 million paid by Airbus to Priyanka Niyomali Wijenayake, wife of former SriLankan chief executive Kapila Chandrasena, into a Biz Solutions Inc. account at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore; onward to an OCBC Bank account in Singapore held by Saber Vision Holdings Limited, chaired by businessman Nimal Perera; and from there, on Perera’s sworn affidavit, US$800,000 to Rajapaksa — “approximately Rs. 100 million”, in the DSG’s words. Perera has refused to return to Sri Lanka, citing death threats.
One figure is new. Investigators have established that €160,400 was transferred from the Biz Solutions account to an account belonging to Shamindra Rajapaksa, son of former minister Chamal Rajapaksa. Earlier reporting recorded only that open warrants stood against him.
A note on the arithmetic, which no outlet explains. US$800,000 equates to roughly Rs. 100 million at the exchange rate prevailing when the transfers were made — the Singapore movements are dated 19 November and 22 December 2014, when the rupee traded near Rs. 130 to the dollar. At the current rate of about Rs. 330 the same sum would be around Rs. 264 million. The Rs. 100 million figure is a 2014 conversion, not a present-day one.
Airbus emails, and where the other three suspects are
Two further disclosures had not been reported before.
The DSG told the court that a forensic investigation conducted with international assistance recovered email communications between Rajapaksa and Airbus officials, and that Airbus officials have travelled to Sri Lanka on several occasions to give statements. He said the emails “reveal the manner in which the suspect acted in relation to this transaction.” A statement was recorded from Rajapaksa inside the remand prison on Monday.
Objecting to bail, the DSG gave the court the status of every suspect in the file — the first time all four have been accounted for in one place:
| Suspect | Status as told to court |
|---|---|
| Kapila Chandrasena (1st) | Deceased; investigation continuing into whether the death was suicide or natural |
| Priyanka Niyomali Wijenayake (2nd) | In Australia, not yet brought before Sri Lankan authorities |
| Shamindra Rajapaksa (3rd) | In the United States, subject of an Interpol Red Notice; has filed revision applications in the High Court |
| Namal Rajapaksa (4th) | In remand custody |
He added that witnesses were afraid to testify because they feared for their lives, and that extracts of the investigation have already been forwarded to the Attorney General’s Department, with steps being taken to file indictments without delay.
The defence submission
The second open question — what Rajapaksa’s lawyers submitted — is also now answered. President’s Counsel Anil Silva sought bail and addressed the prosecution’s two grounds directly:
“My client is an active politician engaged in politics within Sri Lanka. One cannot engage in Sri Lankan politics by living abroad. Any suggestion that he is likely to leave the country is purely speculative.”
On witness interference, Silva argued that no one who had obtained bail would rationally risk it: “Would any sensible person who has gone through the process of obtaining bail then risk interfering with witnesses? Certainly not.” He undertook that bail conditions would not be violated.
Rajapaksa was brought to court from the remand prison by prison bus. The Magistrate remanded him to 23 September and said the bail ruling would be delivered that day.
Two things to keep straight
The company name is spelled two ways. NewsFirst’s 4 September report and the Daily Mirror’s court reports give Sabre Vision Holding Ltd; Wednesday’s NewsFirst report gives Saber Vision Holdings Limited. Same company, same chairman, unresolved spelling.
Two Wijenayakes appear before the Fort Magistrate in the same week. Priyanka Niyomali Wijenayake is Kapila Chandrasena’s wife and the second suspect in this file. She is not Priyanga Anushka Wijenayake, wife of Aravinda de Silva, against whom separate arrest warrants were issued on Wednesday. The names are close and the court is the same.
Still not reported
Whether the two proceedings will be consolidated; when indictments will actually be filed; what the recovered Airbus emails say; whether Sri Lanka has made any extradition request to Australia or the United States; and what became of the €160,400 said to have reached Shamindra Rajapaksa.
