The Colombo High Court has fixed 13 November to deliver its verdict in the case against Sampath Manamperi and three co-defendants over the robbery of a rice lorry, Hiru News reported on Tuesday.
The case was called before Colombo High Court Judge Rashantha Godawela.
The charges
The Attorney General indicted the defendants over an incident on or about 12 August 2009, in which men posing as police officers intimidated a businessman named Sellaadurai Kolavennadan near the Narahenpita junction and robbed him of a rice lorry worth about Rs 1 million, along with cash and a mobile phone he was carrying.
There are seven charges in total. Four defendants are named, among them Manamperi and a man named Neranjan Perera.
Manamperi was produced in court by prison officers. He is currently in remand custody on a separate matter — the discovery of two containers of drug-manufacturing raw materials in the Middeniya area.
A case seventeen years in the courts
The robbery dates to 2009, and the proceedings have run for years. Manamperi was reported wanted over the rice truck heist in September 2025, and the High Court had previously issued a warrant to produce him.
He appears in several unrelated matters this desk has reported. The Tangalle High Court granted him bail over a hand grenade charge in September, police suspended the use of a Rs 17.5 million vehicle linked to him during an illegal assets investigation, and former minister Johnston Fernando was questioned by the Illegal Assets Investigation Division in connection with a separate Manamperi “ice” case.
These are different cases and should not be conflated. The matter decided on 13 November is specifically the 2009 Narahenpita rice lorry robbery, before Judge Godawela.
Not reported
The filing does not say whether the defendants gave evidence, how they pleaded, or what sentence the charges carry on conviction. It does not name the two remaining defendants, say whether all four were produced on Tuesday, or give the status of the separate Middeniya remand case.
This section was written when the report was single-source. The Daily Mirror filed later the same afternoon; see the update below. Searches at the time returned mainly 2025-era coverage of the warrant and his surrender, which describes an earlier stage of the same case.
Update — the Daily Mirror files, and most of the gaps close
The Daily Mirror filed on Tuesday afternoon, making this a two-newsroom story and answering most of what was listed above as unreported.
The judge is Colombo High Court Judge Rashantha Godawela, who fixed 13 November for the verdict, the Daily Mirror reported.
The charges
The Attorney General filed the case on seven charges. The prosecution case is that the accused posed as police officers and threatened businessman Sellathurai Kolavennathan near Narahenpita Junction on or about 12 August 2009, before robbing him of a lorry carrying rice worth approximately Rs 1 million, together with cash and a mobile phone he was carrying.
The accused
There are four accused, including Sampath Manamperi and Neranjan Perera — one of the two names this article previously recorded as missing. The remaining two are still not named.
The Middeniya matter
Manamperi is currently in remand custody in connection with the discovery of two containers holding raw materials allegedly used to manufacture ICE narcotics in the Middeniya area, and was produced before court by prison officials on Tuesday. That resolves the status question left open above.
What remains unreported: how the accused pleaded, whether any gave evidence, what sentence the seven charges carry, and the identities of the third and fourth accused.