Kapila Chandrasena, former Chief Executive Officer of SriLankan Airlines and the central accused in the Airbus bribery case, has been found dead at a residence in Colpetty, police said on Thursday morning.
Police Media Spokesman ASP F. U. Wootler said Chandrasena is suspected to have died by suicide, and that Colpetty Police were conducting further investigations into the circumstances of his death. The Island reported that he was found “under suspicious circumstances.”
The death comes one day after Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama issued a warrant for Chandrasena’s arrest on Wednesday, after the Bribery Commission filed a motion to cancel the bail he had been granted earlier this month. CIABOC told the court that the sureties who had signed for his bail had no knowledge of his employment or whereabouts, in apparent contravention of the Bail Act.
Chandrasena had been remanded in connection with the Airbus deal in late April before being granted bail on May 5 on Rs. 500,000 cash and three sureties of Rs. 10 million each, with travel restrictions. The same Magistrate’s Court had earlier remanded two of the paid sureties on the Bribery Commission’s complaint, citing the same Bail Act of 1997.
The Airbus bribery case stems from allegations that an aircraft sales arrangement between Airbus and SriLankan Airlines was secured through bribery payments routed via offshore companies. Chandrasena was the highest-profile defendant in the long-running prosecution and one of two accused on whom the case rested.
Investigators are expected to conduct a post-mortem and report to the Magistrate’s Court. Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala said no definitive conclusion could be made on the cause of death until after the post-mortem and judicial medical examination. Asked whether the death could have been avoided had police arrested Chandrasena on Wednesday when the warrant was issued, Mr. Wijepala said the police were only informed of the warrant late on Wednesday evening and may have planned to make the arrest the following morning.
On Friday morning, the investigation was handed over to the Colombo Crime Division, taking the probe out of local Colpetty Police hands. Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena ordered the appointment of a five-member judicial medical board headed by the Colombo Chief Judicial Medical Officer to conduct the post-mortem. The examination commenced at the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology in Colombo.
SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam later in the morning demanded an independent inquiry, alleging Chandrasena had filed an affidavit naming threats from CIABOC’s Director General.
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