The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has named SLPP parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa as the fourth suspect in its Krrish bribery case, and the Colombo Chief Magistrate has ordered that he be produced in court on Tuesday.
CIABOC made the disclosure before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court on Monday, acting on instructions from the Attorney General, NewsFirst reported.
The commission reported the facts by motion on Monday morning, after which Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama directed the superintendent of the remand prison to produce Rajapaksa before the court on Tuesday, September 29, Hiru News reported. Neither NewsFirst nor the Daily Mirror carried the production order.
What the commission alleges
The case concerns Rs. 70 million paid to Rajapaksa from an account belonging to the Krrish Group, a large Indian property development company.
The Daily Mirror reported that the money was paid on three separate occasions in return for assistance in securing Urban Development Authority-owned land at Transworks Square in Colombo Fort for Krrish Transworks Colombo (Pvt) Ltd, and in expediting the approvals the project required.
Rajapaksa is already in remand custody in an unrelated matter. Under a court order obtained earlier by the commission, investigators have since recorded a statement from him in prison.
How the case reached this point
CIABOC arrested former Krrish Group executive director Janaki Siriwardena on September 24 over the same alleged payment. She was remanded until October 6 by the same court, which in the same sitting cleared the commission to question Rajapaksa in prison.
At that hearing the commission told the court its investigation began on a written complaint received in 2023, and that Siriwardena, acting for Krrish’s parent Mahadev Company, joined two Indian company directors — Amit Kattiyar and Rajendra Prasad — in providing the money through an intermediary. The court instructed CIABOC to summon evidence on October 2 with a view to issuing warrants for the two Indian nationals.
Those three are the suspects previously identified in the proceedings, which is consistent with Rajapaksa being named fourth. No outlet reporting on Monday enumerated the first three suspects, and LankaNewz has not been able to confirm the ordering independently.
Two cases over the same Rs. 70 million
The sum at the centre of Monday’s development is also the subject of a separate prosecution. The Attorney General’s indictment, filed in February 2025, alleges Rajapaksa committed criminal breach of trust by obtaining Rs. 70 million from the same company on the pretext of promoting rugby in Sri Lanka and then misusing it. That case was fixed for trial on July 7.
The figure, the company and the recipient are identical; the characterisation is not. CIABOC has told the court its bribery investigation proceeds separately from the High Court case, under the Anti-Corruption Act.
Rajapaksa has been in custody since early September in the SriLankan Airlines Airbus matter, in which he was arrested over an alleged Rs. 100 million bribe. His bail application there was refused last week and his remand extended to September 30.
Not reported
No outlet reported whether Rajapaksa will be formally noticed as a suspect at Tuesday’s appearance, whether the commission will seek his further remand in this case, or what charges it intends to frame. Ada Derana also carried the story, but its site returned a CloudFront 403 to every retrieval route attempted.
