Member of Parliament Namal Rajapaksa is due before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court at 9.30 a.m. on Friday as the bribery case against him is called again, NewsFirst reported.

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna national organiser has been in remand custody since 4 September, when the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) arrested him after he appeared at the Commission to give a statement on the Airbus aircraft procurement. Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga Bodaragama remanded him until 18 September — which is why the case returns today.

A new figure on the alleged chain

Hiru News reports a breakdown investigators have not previously been reported as setting out in full.

More than €1.4 million was allegedly paid as a bribe into a Singaporean bank account. Of that sum, US$800,000 was allegedly transferred to a company owned by a Sri Lankan businessman, who is accused of then channelling Rs. 100 million to Rajapaksa.

The Rs. 100 million and US$800,000 figures are already on the court record: Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara gave them to the Chief Magistrate’s Court on 4 September, and Deputy Minister Ruwan Senarath repeated the Rs. 100 million figure on 7 September. The €1.4 million is the new element — and it places the alleged Singapore payment a step further up the chain than the sum said to have reached Rajapaksa himself.

One caution on the arithmetic. The Singapore transfers in this file are dated 2014, when the rupee traded near Rs. 130 to the dollar — which is what makes Rs. 100 million and US$800,000 equivalent. At today’s rate the same US$800,000 would be roughly Rs. 264 million. The figures are not being restated at current rates.

Two proceedings, two courts, two dates

The distinction between the cases against Rajapaksa continues to be blurred in the reporting, and it matters.

The matter called today is the CIABOC bribery case, before the Colombo Chief Magistrate. Separately, the Criminal Investigation Department is running a money laundering investigation into alleged financial irregularities in the acquisition of aircraft for SriLankan Airlines. In that case the Colombo Fort Magistrate has remanded him until 23 September.

NewsFirst reports that Rajapaksa was named a suspect in the money laundering case on the 13th, on the advice of the Attorney General. That date remains unsettled across the reporting: the Daily Mirror has previously put the step at 11 September, NewsFirst’s own contemporaneous filing on 14 September said the magistrate made the order “today”, and the 13th was a Sunday. The discrepancy may reflect outlets dating the Attorney General’s instruction rather than the court’s order — two events the coverage has not distinguished.

Update: he was produced, but the outcome is still unreported

Hiru News confirmed later on Friday that Rajapaksa was brought to court as scheduled, describing him as the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna National Organiser and repeating that he was arrested on his arrival at the Commission on the 4th to give a statement on the questionable Airbus transaction.

That settles the first question — the hearing was not postponed and he was physically produced — but no more than that. The filing runs to two sentences and says nothing about what the court did: no further remand date, no bail application, no charges. Several hours after a 9.30 a.m. listing, the outcome of the hearing itself remains unreported by every verified newsroom, with neither the Daily Mirror nor NewsFirst carrying a post-hearing filing at the time of writing.

Update: a second outlet confirms he was produced, and the outcome is still blank

The Daily Mirror filed at 10.54 a.m. that Rajapaksa “was produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court a short while ago” — an hour and a half after the 9.30 a.m. listing, and the second verified newsroom to confirm he was physically produced.

It does not report the outcome, and the wording invites misreading. The Daily Mirror’s report runs to three sentences. After the opening line it restates the background — that CIABOC arrested him on 4 September after he recorded a statement following several hours of questioning on the Airbus transaction — and then says: “He was subsequently produced before court and remanded.” That sentence describes the September 4 sequence, not Friday’s hearing. Read out of context it appears to announce a fresh remand order; it does not.

So the position at that point was unchanged on substance. Two outlets confirmed the hearing went ahead and that Rajapaksa was produced, but neither reported what the Chief Magistrate did. The outcome surfaced about three hours after the 9.30 a.m. listing.

Resolved: remanded until 29 September, with a bail timetable

Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama ordered Rajapaksa further remanded until 29 September. Three newsrooms now carry the outcome: the Daily Mirror at 12.41 p.m., NewsFirst at 12.35 p.m. and Hiru News.

The Daily Mirror alone reports the timetable the court set for a bail application, and it is the substantive part of the order:

That makes the 29 September date a working one rather than a routine roll-forward: the remand expires and the bail ruling is delivered on the same day. It is also the first point in this case at which a bail application has been given a fixed hearing timetable.

NewsFirst adds the cross-reference to the parallel proceeding, dating it: on 16 September the Colombo Fort Magistrate ordered Rajapaksa held until 23 September in the Criminal Investigation Department’s money laundering case over the same Airbus transaction. He is therefore remanded on two separate orders, with the earlier date falling in the CID matter.

The bail submissions: a temple pinnacle, an Indian invitation — and scripture used against him

NewsFirst published the submissions themselves late on Friday, and they answer the question the earlier filings left open: what was actually argued before the remand order was made.

President’s Counsel Shavindra Fernando, for Rajapaksa, put two grounds to the court. The first was an invitation from the Chief Incumbent of the Hanguranketha Pothgul Viharaya to take part in the installation of the temple’s pinnacle at 7.42 p.m. on 26 September, as part of the temple’s annual Esala Perahera — a procession counsel described as “second only to the Kandy Esala Perahera.” The second, not previously reported anywhere, was an invitation from the Government of India for Rajapaksa to visit the country, which he said would also have to be cancelled if the remand continued.

Failing to attend the pinnacle ceremony “would amount to a discourtesy to the venerable monk who extended the invitation,” Fernando told the court, asking that the circumstances be treated as exceptional and bail granted on appropriate conditions.

The reply is the striking part of the hearing. Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara, for CIABOC, answered a bail application grounded in Buddhist religious observance by invoking Buddhist scripture against it. He told the court that Supreme Court Justice Janak de Silva had recently delivered a judgment which, drawing on the Anguttara Nikaya and the Sutta Pitaka, emphasised the importance of acting free from corruption and of conduct in accordance with the Dhamma.

“Neither the proposed visit to India nor the installation of a temple pinnacle can be regarded as exceptional circumstances,” Bandara said. “No exceptional grounds have been presented on behalf of the suspect.”

It is the prosecution, not the defence, that is citing the canon here — a detail worth stating plainly, because a summary of the hearing that names the Anguttara Nikaya without naming the side that raised it reads exactly backwards.

The case structure, stated in court for the first time

Bandara’s second submission set out the shape of the file, and it is the fullest account any outlet has carried.

The investigation dates back to 2012. Of the suspects ahead of Rajapaksa:

That confirms the framing the Daily Mirror used earlier this month, when it described Namal Rajapaksa as the fourth suspect added to an existing file rather than the subject of a new case. It also puts on the court record something that has until now only been reported second-hand: two of the three suspects who preceded him are outside the country’s reach, and the first is dead. Bandara did not say whether extradition has been sought in either case, and the court did not ask.

He added that the inquiry is being run jointly by CIABOC and the Criminal Investigation Department, that the CID’s investigation extracts have already gone to the Attorney General, and that under Section 69 of the Anti-Corruption Act the Commission has sought the Attorney General’s advice on what to do next. All investigation files are under review. Rajapaksa was produced under Section 149 of the same Act, on a certificate issued by the Director General of CIABOC.

One note on the name: NewsFirst renders the second suspect “Priyanka Niyomali Wijenayake”, where our earlier coverage and other outlets have used “Neomali”. She should not be confused with Priyanka Anushka Wijenayake, who stood bail in the related Fort Magistrate’s Court proceedings.

A contempt probe arises out of the same hearing

At the same sitting, Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara asked the court to consider whether remarks made by former minister Wimal Weerawansa at a 12 September rally, about the order issued against Rajapaksa on the previous court date, amounted to contempt. The Chief Magistrate directed the Inspector General of Police to investigate and report back.

Not reported

No outlet names the businessman said to have received the US$800,000 and passed on Rs. 100 million.

None gives the source of the €1.4 million figure or says whether it was stated in court, and none says what the balance of that sum, beyond the US$800,000, is alleged to have funded. Nor does any report say whether the two proceedings will be consolidated.

The submissions are now on the record, but they raise their own gaps. No outlet says what the invitation from the Government of India was for, when the visit was proposed, or in what capacity Rajapaksa was invited. None reports whether extradition or Interpol action has been taken over the two suspects said to have fled to Australia and the United States, or when either left. None gives the citation for the Supreme Court judgment of Justice Janak de Silva that the Deputy Solicitor General relied on, or says what case it arose from. And none records whether the Chief Magistrate indicated any view on the submissions before fixing the timetable.

Sources