{"id":43327,"date":"2026-09-05T00:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T00:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/43327\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T00:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T00:07:10","slug":"sri-lanka-namal-rajapaksa-arrested-remanded-in-usd-800000-airbus-graft-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/43327\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka: Namal Rajapaksa arrested, remanded in USD 800,000 Airbus graft case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"content\">Colombo, Namal Rajapaksa, the elder son of Sri Lanka&#8217;s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, was arrested by the island nation&#8217;s anti-graft commission over alleged corruption linked to the purchase of Airbus aircraft for SriLankan Airlines.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/US_News_1767090888271_1767090921295.png\" alt=\"Sri Lanka: Namal Rajapaksa arrested, remanded in USD 800,000 Airbus graft case\" title=\"Sri Lanka: Namal Rajapaksa arrested, remanded in USD 800,000 Airbus graft case\" width=\"360\" height=\"202\" loading=\"eager\"\/>Sri Lanka: Namal Rajapaksa arrested, remanded in USD 800,000 Airbus graft case<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">Rajapaksa, 40, was asked to appear before the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption on Friday. He was arrested after more than five hours of questioning by the anti-graft commission before being presented before Magistrate Asanga S Boderagama. The Colombo magistrate remanded him till September 18, officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">The questioning of Namal Rajapaksa a leader of the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna was based on information that he had benefited USD 800,000 from the purchase of wide-bodied Airbus aircraft for SriLankan Airlines under his father&#8217;s presidency, when commissions were deposited into various bank accounts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">This was the first remand of a Rajapaksa from the former first family since the current National People&#8217;s Power government came into power two years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">Namal Rajapaksa&#8217;s cousin Shashindra Rajapaksa is currently on bail, having been remanded early this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">Namal Rajapaksa had announced plans of organising the first of a major anti-government public rally on September 12 in the north central town of Anuradhapura.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">The SLPP claimed his remand was the government&#8217;s plan to scuttle the rally and his opposition campaign against the government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">Namal Rajapaksa&#8217;s siblings are also facing various charges of wrongdoing, which they all claim are political witch hunts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">Friday&#8217;s arrest and remand came after the arrest by the CIABOC of Johnston Fernando, a former Cabinet member of the Rajapaksa governments between 2005 and 2023. He was charged with misusing public funds to install seating at a conference hall named after Mahinda Rajapaksa in the central district of Kandy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colombo, Namal Rajapaksa, the elder son of Sri Lanka&#8217;s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, was arrested by the island&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[90,27600,27598,27599,27552,8649],"class_list":["post-43327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus","tag-airbus","tag-anti-graft-commission","tag-colombo","tag-corruption","tag-namal-rajapaksa","tag-srilankan-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}