The Colombo High Court on Wednesday refixed the money laundering case against Yoshitha Rajapaksa and his grandmother Daisy Forrest for July 16, after the Attorney General’s Department told the court a parallel case under the same factual matrix was awaiting a Court of Appeal ruling.
The case was taken up before High Court Judge Rashmi Singappuli, with both Yoshitha and Daisy Forrest appearing in court, Newswire reported. Senior State Counsel Oswald Perera, representing the prosecution, told the bench that a parallel case linked to the same matter was being heard before High Court No. 8, and that the first accused in that proceeding had filed a revision application before the Court of Appeal challenging the indictment, NewsFirst reported.
The prosecution asked the court to fix a new date for the present case until the Court of Appeal delivered its ruling. Judge Singappuli granted the request and set July 16 for the next hearing.
The refixing supersedes a tentative July 9 date that had been issued in early June after a similar prosecution submission. The Attorney General has filed three charges against the defendants under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, alleging that over Rs. 59 million believed to have been illegally earned was deposited into three fixed-deposit accounts at private banks between 31 March 2009 and 12 December 2013.
The same Court of Appeal track — separately initiated by Yoshitha to challenge a High Court ruling that allowed a conspiracy charge against him under the PMLA to proceed — is also moving in parallel. The Court of Appeal granted leave for that revision petition on June 3 and is due to take it up on June 16.
The complainant told the Court of Appeal earlier this month that evidence in the High Court case would not be led until that ruling was delivered, and the High Court accordingly directed that witnesses not be called.
Yoshitha and Daisy Forrest entered not-guilty pleas in May after the prosecution had its preliminary objections rejected, with the trial having since proceeded against the remaining accused. Forrest was separately released from another money laundering case earlier in the cycle, but remains a co-accused in the present proceeding.
Yoshitha is also separately under a travel ban issued by the Homagama Magistrate’s Court in a Rs.17 million money-laundering matter that is factually unrelated to the present case. The two parallel tracks have kept the second-generation Rajapaksa under sustained judicial scrutiny.
