Former First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa will be required to return to Sri Lanka and comply with the investigation she is summoned in, and authorities may take further action if she does not, Deputy Minister Eranga Gunasekera said.

Gunasekera said the government is committed to upholding the rule of law and to having allegations of political crimes examined through the courts rather than politically, the Daily Mirror reported.

Those found responsible for political crimes, murders or acts that contributed to the country’s economic collapse will face legal consequences regardless of whether they have left the country, he said. How many cases are brought, and of what kind, will depend on the offences alleged and on what investigators find.

He also said the government is working to strengthen the independence of the police and the judiciary.

Where the Rajapaksa matter stands

Gunasekera said a court had ordered Rajapaksa to give an official statement, and referred to social media reports that she had travelled abroad for medical treatment.

The sequence on our record is narrower than that. Rajapaksa was served a summons by the Financial Crimes Investigation Division — not a court order — near the departure gate at Bandaranaike International Airport on 16 September, minutes before she boarded a flight to Singapore. A family member said she would return on 19 September; she had not returned by the 20th, and on 24 September a lawyer submitted a letter to the FCID citing eye surgery in Singapore and giving no return date.

The Daily Mirror does not reconcile the difference, and it is not clear whether Gunasekera was describing a court order that has not previously been reported or was loosely characterising the FCID summons.

The CT scanner allegations

Gunasekera referred to an ongoing case concerning a CT scan machine, which he described as involving funds obtained from China and from a bank and presented as a birthday gift for Rajapaksa’s son.

That characterisation is looser than what has been reported of the file itself. The FCID inquiry, disclosed on 17 September, concerns Rs. 10 million obtained from a state-owned bank and deposited into an account of the Siriliya Saviya Foundation to buy a CT scanner for the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children. Investigators have not established that any scanner was bought with the money, and found that the equipment eventually presented to the hospital was a PET scanning machine donated by China — not a scanner bought with the funds raised.

The Chinese donation and the bank money are, on that account, two separate things. The “birthday gift” element does not appear anywhere in the reporting on the file, and the Daily Mirror does not say which of Rajapaksa’s sons is meant or what the gift is alleged to have been. We treat it as Gunasekera’s characterisation, not as an established feature of the case.

Gunasekera said the allegations would be examined through the judicial process and the facts would emerge in court.

Who is speaking

The Daily Mirror identifies Gunasekera only as “Deputy Minister.” Our own earlier reporting records him as Deputy Minister of Urban Development — a portfolio with no responsibility for prosecutions, investigations or the courts. He is speaking for the government politically rather than with departmental authority over the matter, and the Daily Mirror does not report him announcing any specific step.

Not reported

The report does not say whether the FCID has accepted the lawyer’s letter, whether a new date has been fixed, or what “further action” the authorities are contemplating — whether a travel ban, an arrest warrant, or an application to a court. It does not say whether the government has sought Rajapaksa’s return through diplomatic or consular channels, and records no response from her family or her lawyers. No other verified newsroom had filed on Gunasekera’s remarks at the time of writing.