Colombo: Sri Lanka’s main anti-graft body arrested lawmaker Namal Rajapaksa, the son of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, on Friday in connection with a corruption probe into a 2013 Airbus aircraft purchase.<\/p>\n
\t The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) said the 40-year-old scion of the once-powerful Rajapaksa family “was summoned for questioning over the Airbus transaction”.<\/p>\n
\t “The MP was arrested afterwards and will be taken before a magistrate,” a commission official said.<\/p>\n
\t It was not immediately clear what charges Rajapaksa faces.<\/p>\n
\t His lawyer, Nishantha Dayananda, confirmed the arrest over the controversial $2.3-billion deal, which was eventually cancelled by a new government in 2016.<\/p>\n
\t CIABOC had questioned the former president himself in May over allegations that he had received kickbacks from the aircraft purchase.<\/p>\n
\t The anti-graft probe centres on claims that the European manufacturer channelled part of the money from the purchase to senior Sri Lankan officials and politicians.<\/p>\n
\t The Rajapaksa family has denied allegations that they received bribes and dismissed corruption claims against them as politically motivated.<\/p>\n
\t Former SriLankan Airlines chief executive Kapila Chandrasena told investigators in March that he had handed nearly half a million dollars in kickbacks to Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n
\t Chandrasena was found dead at a relative’s home in May, shortly before he was due to be rearrested. The cause of death has not been established.<\/p>\n
\t A joint investigation by US, British and French authorities previously found Airbus had agreed to pay about $16 million in bribes in Sri Lanka, with $1.7 million routed to Chandrasena before the scandal was uncovered.<\/p>\n
\t The payments were linked to the purchase of 10 Airbus aircraft, which required cabinet approval during Rajapaksa’s presidency from 2005 to 2015.<\/p>\n
\t According to submissions made in court, Chandrasena initially told investigators he had paid Rajapaksa 60 million rupees ($461,000 at the time) in three instalments in 2013.<\/p>\n
\t He later retracted the statement, claiming it had been made under pressure.<\/p>\n
\t SriLankan Airlines has accumulated losses estimated at nearly $2 billion, and repeated attempts to privatise the debt-laden flag carrier have failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colombo: Sri Lanka’s main anti-graft body arrested lawmaker Namal Rajapaksa, the son of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13021],"tags":[45512,4616,45514,45511,45515,45513,45507,45509,20674,45508,45510],"class_list":["post-74420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus","tag-2013-airbus-aircraft-purchase","tag-airbus","tag-airbus-deal","tag-ciaboc-namal-rajapaksa-arrest","tag-corruption-probe","tag-namal-rajapaksa","tag-namal-rajapaksa-corruption-arrest","tag-rajapaksa-family-corruption-allegations","tag-sri-lanka","tag-sri-lanka-airbus-deal-probe","tag-srilankan-airlines-airbus-scandal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}