Former Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella arrived at the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) on Tuesday morning to record a statement in connection with an ongoing investigation.
Daily Mirror reported that he arrived in a wheelchair and was questioned as part of the Commission’s continuing inquiries into the matter. Ada Derana and Hiru News both reported his arrival at the Commission to give a statement, without referring to a wheelchair.
None of the three newsrooms identified which investigation the statement relates to at the time of his arrival. All described it only as an ongoing inquiry.
Rambukwella was subsequently arrested at the Commission later on Tuesday. Reporting after the arrest, NewsFirst said the summons concerned allegations that employees were recruited to the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation in excess of its approved cadre, and that statements were also recorded the same day in a separate inquiry into the alleged theft of a historic moonstone from an archaeological site in Kundasale.
Context
Rambukwella, who held the health portfolio under the previous government, 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, which prompted a doctors’ trade union to demand a response from the Health Ministry in June.
In May, Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa named Rambukwella among more than a dozen politicians whose corruption cases he said were advancing toward verdicts.
Recording a statement before CIABOC is an investigative step and does not indicate that charges have been filed or that any finding has been made.
