INTERPOL has issued a Blue Notice for former minister Basil Rajapaksa following a request from the Criminal Investigation Department, Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told the Daily Mirror, which reported the decision on Saturday morning.
Wijepala said the government is using international law enforcement mechanisms to trace former politicians and other wanted individuals living overseas while facing proceedings in Sri Lanka, and that it would do so “regardless of their previous political positions.”
What a Blue Notice actually does
The distinction matters, and the minister drew it himself.
A Blue Notice is an international alert used to collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in connection with a criminal investigation. It is not an arrest warrant and carries no power of detention.
A Red Notice is the instrument that asks other jurisdictions to locate and provisionally arrest someone pending extradition.
Wijepala said a Blue Notice is issued when a suspect’s foreign address or country of residence is already known, and serves as an official declaration that the person is wanted at home. A Red Notice, by contrast, is sought for fugitives “whose whereabouts remain entirely unknown.”
“A Blue Notice has been issued for Basil Rajapaksa. When individuals are required for an investigation, we notify Interpol through a Blue Notice. If there is a known address showing he resides in a specific place, the Blue Notice conveys that he is required by the country,” the minister said.
Sri Lanka’s INTERPOL bureau operates through the CID, which requests and processes notices through the international system.
The implication the minister did not spell out
Read against his own definition, the choice of notice is itself a disclosure: if a Blue Notice is what you issue when the address is known, then the state is saying it knows which country Basil Rajapaksa is living in.
That sharpens rather than answers the question of why he has not been produced before a court. The Daily Mirror does not name the country, and the minister did not say whether Sri Lanka has made — or intends to make — an extradition request to it.
A weaker instrument than the one trailed in June
This is also not quite what was signalled three months ago.
The Island reported on 21 June 2026 that the CID and Police Headquarters were in the process of seeking INTERPOL assistance to secure Basil Rajapaksa’s return, and framed the expected instrument as a Red Notice — which, it noted, “would serve as a request to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition proceedings.” At that stage a police source said authorities were only considering the step.
What has issued three months later is the notice that gathers information, not the one that asks for an arrest. No outlet has reported why, whether a Red Notice was applied for and refused, or whether one may still follow.
The case behind the notice
The notice traces back to the Brown Hill land case in Matara.
The Matara Chief Magistrate’s Court reissued an arrest warrant against Rajapaksa in July after he again failed to appear over the alleged purchase of a 1.5-acre property at Brown’s Hill, Eliyakanda Road, Matara, for Rs. 60 million. Chief Magistrate Chathuranga Eranga Dissanayake ordered the fresh warrant, citing continued evasion; an earlier warrant had been issued on 22 May.
The case was filed by the Police Financial Crimes Investigation Division and names several other accused, including Ayoma Galappaththi — a sister of Rajapaksa’s wife — together with Tissa Galappaththi and Muditha Jayakody.
Rajapaksa’s lawyers had previously told the court he was overseas receiving medical treatment. The court ordered the warrant enforced after considering his repeated absences.
Two Rajapaksas, two different notices
Readers should not conflate this with the other INTERPOL matter now running against the family.
Shamindra Rajapaksa, the third suspect in the Airbus bribery and money-laundering case, is in the United States and is the subject of an INTERPOL Red Notice — the arrest-and-extradition instrument. Basil Rajapaksa’s is a Blue Notice in a separate Matara land case.
The colour of the notice is the difference between an information request and a request to detain.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not say when the Blue Notice was issued or when the CID applied for it, which country Basil Rajapaksa is understood to be residing in, or whether Sri Lanka has lodged an extradition request anywhere.
It does not say whether the notice covers only the Brown Hill case or the other proceedings he faces, whether a Red Notice was sought first, or what practical step the government expects the notice to produce. No response from Rajapaksa or his lawyers is reported, and there is no indication that the medical-treatment explanation given to the Matara court has been tested.
The minister said international mechanisms would be used against wanted figures abroad generally, but no outlet reports how many other former politicians are the subject of notices, or which.