Former Navy Commander Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda was arrested by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) on Thursday, in connection with the recruitment of Yoshitha Rajapaksa into the Sri Lanka Navy.
Investigators allege that Karannagoda’s tenure oversaw the enlistment of Yoshitha, a son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as an executive officer by altering the required qualifications. Government funds were then used to send him for training at the Britannia Royal Naval College in the United Kingdom.
Karannagoda had been summoned to CIABOC on June 16 and again on June 22 to give a statement but failed to appear on both occasions, citing illness.
Yoshitha Rajapaksa was arrested by CIABOC on June 17 in connection with the same matter and released the following day on three personal bails of Rs. 500,000 each. The naval training case is one of two active accountability tracks against Yoshitha; a separate money laundering case at the Court of Appeal saw the same bench dismiss a revision petition earlier on Thursday.
Karannagoda served as Sri Lanka’s naval chief between 2005 and 2009, spanning the final phase of the war against the LTTE. He was elevated to Admiral of the Fleet in 2022, a five-star rank that placed him at the top of the country’s naval hierarchy.
The arrest marks one of the most senior military figures to be taken into custody in the current wave of CIABOC actions targeting the previous administration. It follows a string of investigations touching former ministers, state enterprise chiefs and senior officials that began after the change of government in September 2024.
