The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has arrested a former deputy commissioner of the Excise Department and a serving excise corporal, Hiru News reported on Friday morning.
The two were named as Channa Weerakkody, a former Deputy Commissioner of the Excise Department, and Sampath Ranasinghe, a corporal attached to the Matara Excise Station.
Hiru News reported that the Bribery Commission took the pair into custody over an allegation of accepting a bribe from a legally licensed company. The outlet’s own photograph of the Commission’s trilingual nameboard identifies the arresting agency as the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, the body commonly referred to in Sri Lanka as the Bribery Commission.
A brief filing
The report is short and leaves most of the case unstated. It does not give the value of the alleged bribe, name the licensed company involved, say when the alleged offences took place, or indicate the court before which the two suspects are to be produced. It also does not say what position Weerakkody held at the time of the conduct alleged against him, as distinct from the rank he held on retirement.
One point of wording is worth noting. The headline attached to the report places the arrest “at the Matara Excise Station,” while the body of the report describes the Matara station as the corporal’s posting rather than the location of the arrest. The two suspects’ ranks — a departmental deputy commissioner and a station-level corporal — are separated by several grades, and the filing does not explain how their alleged conduct is connected.
Neither suspect has been charged in court at the time of writing, and an arrest is not a finding of guilt.
