A Lanka Sathosa director who also served as personal secretary to former Minister Johnston Fernando has been remanded until 21 October over the alleged misappropriation of Rs. 1.9 million from a 2011 cooperative movement festival fund.
Hiru News reports that the suspect is Mohammad Sakeer, who served as a functional director of Sathosa and as personal secretary to Fernando during his tenure as minister. Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena ordered the further remand on Tuesday and rejected a bail application made on his behalf.
He was arrested by the Police Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) on Monday and produced before the Fort Magistrate’s Court, which remanded him until Tuesday, NewsFirst reported at 12.49 p.m.
The allegation
The two newsrooms describe the same alleged scheme from different angles, and together they give a fuller account than either alone.
NewsFirst reports that while serving as an Executive Director of Lanka Sathosa in 2011, the suspect misappropriated over Rs. 1.9 million through fraudulent vouchers, under the guise of a promotional campaign.
Hiru identifies what that campaign was. The charges concern the preparation of forged documents to take Rs. 1.9 million from money allocated out of the Cooperative Development Fund for the “Isuru Saviya” festival held in 2011 to mark one hundred years of the cooperative movement.
The accounts differ on his title — NewsFirst calls him an Executive Director of Lanka Sathosa, Hiru a functional director of Sathosa — and on whether he remains a personal secretary or is a former one. Neither difference bears on the charge.
This is an aide, not the former minister
Fernando himself is not reported as a suspect in this matter, and no filing suggests he has been questioned over it. He faces several separate proceedings of his own: he was arrested by the Bribery Commission in September over an auditorium chair purchase, the Court of Appeal ordered his CWE corruption trial to resume in August, and he was granted bail in April after four months in remand in an earlier Sathosa matter.
Lanka Sathosa, the state retail chain, fell under Fernando’s ministerial portfolio and has produced a recurring stream of financial investigations.
Not reported
Neither filing says how long the FCID investigation has run, why a 2011 transaction is being prosecuted now, or whether anyone else is a suspect. Neither reports the grounds on which bail was refused, nor any response from the suspect or his lawyers. No filing says whether the Cooperative Development Fund money was recovered.
