Former Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella was arrested by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) on Tuesday, hours after he arrived at the Commission to record a statement.
Ada Derana reported that Rambukwella went to the Bribery Commission on Tuesday morning in connection with an ongoing investigation and was taken into custody there. Daily Mirror and Hiru News both reported the arrest.
Hiru News, citing CIABOC, said he was due to be produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate on Tuesday. Neither Ada Derana nor Daily Mirror carried that detail.
Which investigation is not identified
None of the three newsrooms said which investigation the arrest relates to. All three described it only as an ongoing inquiry, and this report does not assume a connection to any particular case.
Context
Rambukwella arrived at the Commission in a wheelchair earlier on Tuesday to give the statement, according to Daily Mirror. Ada Derana and Hiru News reported his arrival without referring to a wheelchair.
He held the health portfolio under the previous government and is separately a defendant in a long-running substandard-medicines case before a three-judge Special High Court bench. Evidence in that case included testimony about expired rabies vaccines allegedly administered to patients.
In May, Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa named Rambukwella among more than a dozen politicians whose corruption cases he said were advancing toward verdicts.
An arrest is an investigative step and does not indicate that charges have been filed or that any finding has been made.
