The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) has suspended several bank accounts belonging to Rakitha Rajapakshe, son of former Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, acting under legislation governing the proceeds of crime.
Three verified newsrooms reported the move on Thursday. NewsFirst filed first, at 2.30 p.m., followed by the Daily Mirror at 4.03 p.m. and Hiru News at 4.25 p.m.
All three agree on the core facts: the accounts were frozen as part of an ongoing CIABOC investigation, the action was taken under the law relating to property derived from criminal activity, and Commission officers travelled to Rajapakshe’s residence in Nawala to serve the notice.
What the freeze covers
NewsFirst and the Daily Mirror both describe the action as covering bank accounts only.
Hiru News reports a wider freeze — several bank accounts and several luxury vehicles — and is the only outlet to name the statute, citing the Proceeds of Crime Act, No. 5 of 2025. Hiru attributes this to a senior Commission official and describes Rajapakshe as an attorney-at-law. The vehicles and the statutory citation are single-outlet claims and are reported here as such.
The underlying case
Hiru places the freeze within a bribery case already before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court: an allegation that a bribe was demanded and obtained from the wife of an organised-crime figure in return for arranging favourable treatment for him.
Hiru gives the sum as Rs. 120 million. That figure matches this desk’s earlier reporting on the case exactly, where CIABOC told court that an initial demand of Rs. 500 million was reduced to Rs. 200 million, of which Rs. 120 million was said to have been paid in two instalments. The money was allegedly collected from the wife of Nadun Chinthaka Wickramaratne, alias “Harak Kata”, while he was held under CID detention orders.
Hiru names the three suspects in that case as Rajapakshe, former SJB Horana organiser Charith Abeysinghe, and a third man, and says all three were remanded and are currently on bail. The Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court granted bail to all three on 28 July, barring them from travelling abroad and ordering CIABOC to report the progress of its investigation to court on 8 December.
An unresolved discrepancy on the notice
The three filings do not agree on when the suspension notice was served, or whether it was served at all.
| Outlet | Filed | Visit date | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| NewsFirst | 2.30 p.m. | ”yesterday” (28 Oct) | Rajapakshe not at home |
| Daily Mirror | 4.03 p.m. | 28 October | Not at home; officers “would visit again” |
| Hiru News | 4.25 p.m. | ”today (29)“ | Notice handed over |
NewsFirst and the Daily Mirror agree the visit was on 28 October and that Rajapakshe was absent. Hiru, filing 22 minutes after the Daily Mirror, says officers went to the house on the 29th and delivered the notice.
Both readings are possible. Hiru may have misdated the visit — a recurring issue with relative day-words in Sinhala copy. Alternatively, Hiru may be reporting the return visit that the Daily Mirror said was still to come, in which case its filing is the more recent account rather than a contradiction. Nothing in the three filings settles it, and this desk is not treating either version as established.
Not reported
None of the three filings says how many accounts were frozen, at which banks, or what sums they hold. Hiru does not say how many vehicles were suspended or identify them.
No filing says whether the suspension is time-limited, whether it requires judicial confirmation, or whether Rajapakshe has a right of appeal against it. None reports any response from Rajapakshe or his lawyers, and none indicates whether the freeze affects the other two suspects in the case.
Neither NewsFirst nor the Daily Mirror connects the freeze to the specific Rs. 120 million allegation; that link is made only by Hiru.
On sourcing: three verified newsrooms filed independently within two hours. Ada Derana remains inaccessible — its CloudFront block is now in its seventh week — so any filing it made on this story could not be dated or cited.
