The Colombo Magistrate's Court issued open warrants for the arrests of former SriLankan Airlines board member Shamindra Rajapaksa and Priyanka Neomali Wijenayake, the wife of former CEO Kapila Chandrasena.
The warrants were issued on Thursday (April 2) after they failed to appear before the Court in the ongoing case of alleged bribery in relation to a deal between Airbus, the French airplane manufacturer, and SriLankan Airlines.
Chandrasena, who was arrested on March 13, for a second time in relation to the alleged bribery, was further remanded until April 17.
Context
The alleged bribe is related to SriLankan Airlines’ purchase of 10 aircrafts (six A330s and four A350s) from Airbus in 2013.
A British court in 2020 found that Airbus had paid US$16.84 million in bribes in connection with the deal, following an investigation by the United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office.
It was also revealed that US$ 2 million had been credited to an account belonging to a Brunei-based company owned by Wijenayake, the wife of Chandrasena, who was CEO of SriLankan Airlines at the time.
Those funds were later transferred on a number of occasions from a Singaporean account belonging to the same company, to Chandrasena’s personal account in Australia and several other accounts.
Investigations also revealed that US$ 160,000 had been transferred into the account of Shamindra Rajapaksa, the son of former Speaker of Parliament, Chamal Rajapaksa.
A warrant for Shamindra Rajapaksa’s arrest was issued in February this year, when he was named as the third suspect in the case.
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