The “Siriliya Saviya” organisation was used to launder black money, the prosecution told the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, opening its case against former First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa and former National Savings Bank chairman Pradeep Kariyawasam in the fullest account of the allegations yet given in open court.
Additional Solicitor General Deelipa Peeris, appearing for the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), said charges have been filed under the Public Property Act and Section 70 of the Anti-Corruption Act, the Daily Mirror reported. The prosecution objected to bail, and said further suspects are due to be arrested.
The case was taken up before Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama. Kariyawasam, the first suspect and currently on bail, appeared. Rajapaksa, the second suspect, did not — she is being treated at the National Hospital’s cardiology unit, a matter covered separately in our report on her detention and medical treatment.
A joint investigation by two agencies
Peeris told the court that the Financial Crimes Investigation Division and CIABOC have entered into an agreement and are jointly conducting this investigation with mutual consent — something he said was happening for the first time.
Hiru News, reporting the same submissions, adds that those joint investigations stand at their final stages. Hiru renders the unit as the Financial Crimes Division of the CID and the prosecutor’s name as Dileepa Peeris; these are the same body and the same officer.
The chronology the prosecution set out
On the Daily Mirror’s account of the submissions:
- On 28 December 2010, Rajapaksa used letterhead bearing the designation “First Lady, Shiranthi Rajapaksa” to ask the National Savings Bank for Rs. 140 million for a project called Carlton Suwa Udana. The amount was subsequently changed verbally to Rs. 50 million.
- Funds were also credited to the account by the National Lotteries Board, Sri Lanka Insurance and Seylan Bank, each of which had also been approached.
- Kariyawasam held discussions on the matter, an agreement was reached to provide Rs. 10 million, and the amount was approved on 30 December 2010.
- On 4 May 2011, Rajapaksa instructed Kariyawasam to credit the money to the Siriliya Saviya account at the Bank of Ceylon’s Maradana branch rather than to the Carlton Suwa Udana account. There was no board approval for that transfer, but it went ahead on the stated basis that the request came from the First Lady.
One date in that sequence does not sit with the others. The Daily Mirror renders the discussions with Kariyawasam as taking place “later, on December 8, 2010” — a date that falls before the 28 December request it is said to follow, and before the 30 December approval. Either the sequence or one of the dates is mis-stated in the filing; this desk cannot resolve which from the reporting available, and records the discrepancy rather than smoothing it over.
The scanner at the centre of the case
The allegation that put Rajapaksa in custody is that the Rs. 10 million was obtained on the stated basis of supplying a CT scanner to the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, and that no such scanner was supplied.
What Peeris told the court goes further. In 2014, he said, Lady Ridgeway received a scanner donated by the Chinese Government. When the Sri Lankan government sought a loan from China, it had asked that the machine be provided and that its price be deducted from the loan amount. That machine was then handed over to the hospital as a donation by the Siriliya Saviya organisation, with Kariyawasam invited to the event.
The handover, Peeris said, took place on the birthday of a child of the second suspect. Two Lady Ridgeway doctors, named in his submissions as Ranmanthri and Ratnasiri, have given statements confirming the machine was a Chinese Government donation.
He added a detail that bears directly on the stated purpose of the money: the hospital already had a CT scanner at the time.
The machine is described differently than it was in September
The prosecution calls it an MRI scanner. When the subject of the earlier FCID summons was first disclosed in September, NewsFirst reported that the equipment eventually presented to the hospital was a PET scanner donated by China — a different class of machine.
Magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography are not interchangeable, and no filing reconciles the two accounts. The court submission is the more formal of the two and is supported by named witness statements, but the discrepancy is recorded here rather than resolved, since neither outlet addresses the other.
The account itself
Peeris also put the foundation’s own standing in issue. The account was opened in 2006 under the name “Shiranthi Nawodaya” and renamed “Siriliya Saviya” three months later. The organisation, he said, was not formally registered and submitted no official reports.
Despite that, he told the court, the State emblem was used, the address of the Presidential Secretariat was given as though it were a state institution, and correspondence was issued on letterheads identifying Rajapaksa as First Lady. “To use the State emblem,” Peeris said, “a person must hold a State position.”
The defence
President’s Counsel Anil Silva, for Rajapaksa, told the court he would not make submissions on the factual circumstances at that stage but rejected all of the facts presented by the prosecution. His application was for bail on medical grounds, on the basis of her heart condition and her admission to the National Hospital.
What happens next
Bodaragama further remanded Rajapaksa until 16 October and said he would announce a decision on bail that day. He ordered a medical panel’s report on her condition to be submitted before then.
Not reported
Neither filing says what became of the Rs. 10 million after it reached the Siriliya Saviya account, or whether any part of it has been traced or recovered. Neither says what the Carlton Suwa Udana project was, nor whether it is connected to Carlton House, the Rajapaksa family residence in Tangalle that figured in earlier reporting on this inquiry — the name is noted here only because it recurs, not as an established link.
Neither reports how much the National Lotteries Board, Sri Lanka Insurance or Seylan Bank credited to the account, or whether any of those institutions is under investigation. Neither identifies who the further suspects due to be arrested are, nor when. Neither gives the response of the Chinese Embassy or of Lady Ridgeway Hospital to the account of the 2014 handover, and neither says whether the child whose birthday is referred to has any role in the matter beyond the date.
The defence has not yet answered the substance of the allegations, having expressly reserved its position on the facts.
Sources: Daily Mirror, Hiru News.
