The Matara Magistrate’s Court on Saturday ordered that former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa be taken into custody and imposed a travel ban, after the Attorney General told the court that air tickets booked for his return to Sri Lanka on the day of the hearing had been cancelled.
Chief Magistrate Chathuranga Eranga Dissanayake — the same bench that issued an arrest warrant a day earlier in the Brown Hill land case — was again presented with medical reports from defence counsel Anil de Silva PC, stating that Rajapaksa was overseas receiving treatment for ill health.
Senior State Counsel Kalana Kodikara, appearing for the Attorney General, countered that tickets booked for Rajapaksa to return for the hearing had subsequently been cancelled. He said the accused had been evading court appearances for nearly a year while repeatedly submitting the same medical report, and that the ticket arrangements appeared designed to mislead judicial proceedings.
The magistrate, noting the continued non-appearance and the prosecution’s submissions, directed that Rajapaksa be immediately taken into custody and produced before court, and imposed a travel ban.
The fourth accused, Ayoma Galappaththi — the sister of Basil Rajapaksa’s wife — also failed to appear. Sureties were warned that producing the accused before court was their responsibility. The next hearing was fixed for July 21.
The Brown Hill case alleges that a plot of land in Matara was purchased using misappropriated funds. It is the first active criminal warrant track against Basil Rajapaksa and runs in parallel to the ongoing IUSF occupation of the Malwana property and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption proceedings against his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa over the SriLankan Airlines Airbus deal.
