Hambantota Magistrate Isuru Neththikumara on Monday ordered the superintendent of the Colombo remand prison to produce MP Namal Rajapaksa before the Hambantota High Court on 16 November, in the case arising from a 2017 protest against the sale of Hambantota International Port.
The order was made as the magistrate concluded the proceedings before his own court, Hiru News reported on Monday afternoon.
The Attorney General has filed indictments against the suspects in the High Court, and the magistrate told open court that the case would be called there on the 16th. Rajapaksa is listed as the 35th suspect in the matter.
Who appeared, and who did not
Hambantota Police named 41 suspects in the case. Thirty-five of them appeared before the Magistrate’s Court on Monday, among them MP D.V. Chanaka, former MPs Upali Kodikara and Prasanna Ranaweera, and former provincial council member Ajith Prasanna.
Five suspects — those numbered 6, 11, 13, 29 and 31 — did not appear. The court issued warrants directing police to arrest them and produce them before court.
The 2017 protest
The case dates from 2017, under the then government, when the opposition protested against the sale of Hambantota International Port to the Chinese government. Hambantota Police filed the matter in the Hambantota Chief Magistrate’s Court against Rajapaksa and 40 others on several counts including damage to public property.
The case had been called in that court for close to ten years before Monday’s transfer to the High Court.
What the order does and does not say
Hiru’s English headline describes the court as having ordered imprisonment. That is not what the Sinhala report says: the order was issued to the prison — a direction to the remand authorities to produce the MP in Hambantota on the 16th — not an order imprisoning him. No custodial sentence was imposed on Monday.
Rajapaksa is already in remand custody in a separate matter. This desk reported that a Colombo magistrate fixed 3 November to deliver his bail order in the Krrish land case, in which he stands remanded until 6 November.
Five dates, five cases
Readers following these proceedings should note that several of Rajapaksa’s cases now carry dates within weeks of each other, and they are easily confused. The bail ruling in the Krrish matter falls on 3 November; his remand in that case runs to 6 November; this port protest case is called in Hambantota on 16 November; the Airbus indictment returns before the Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar on 19 November; and the NR Consultancy money laundering case is set for February 2027. Only the 16 November date belongs to the Hambantota port case.
No other verified newsroom had filed on Monday’s Hambantota proceedings at the time of writing.