The Registrar of the Minuwangoda Magistrate’s Court has been arrested over allegations of abetting bribery in the case of former Deputy Minister Sarana Gunawardena.
The arrest was made by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), Newswire reported. Hiru News reported the arrest, linking it to an incident in which Gunawardena’s wife allegedly offered a bribe to have her husband’s prison sentence commuted.
What the registrar is accused of
CIABOC alleges the registrar aided and abetted the acceptance of the alleged bribe, Newswire reported. The commission says the arrest is connected to an investigation into an attempt to secure a suspended prison sentence for Gunawardena.
How the investigation got here
The inquiry had already reached Gunawardena’s wife, Chinari Lakmanthi Hettiarachchi, who was arrested and remanded in September over an alleged Rs. 50,000 payment to an office assistant attached to the Colombo High Court, intended to influence the sentence imposed on her husband. Investigators told the court that messages recovered from the office assistant’s mobile phone referred to the arrangement and to the transfer of money. LankaNewz covered that stage in the remand of the former deputy minister’s wife.
Friday’s arrest widens the investigation from the court staffer and the accused’s family to a senior court official.
The underlying conviction
The bribery investigation runs alongside the corruption case against Gunawardena himself. In June, the Colombo High Court sentenced him to an effective 16 years of rigorous imprisonment after convicting him in four corruption cases concerning the rental procurement of vehicles while he headed the Development Lotteries Board in 2006, Newswire reported. The charges alleged the arrangements caused losses to the state while giving undue benefits to vehicle owners.
Neither report named the registrar or stated whether he had been produced before a court.
