AG orders to obtain warrant and arrest ex-SriLankan CEO and wife

The Attorney General has directed the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to obtain a warrant and arrest the former CEO of SriLankan Airlines Kapila Chandrasena and his wife on charges of money laundering.

The AG’s Coordinating Officer State Counsel Nishara Jayaratne stated that the Attorney General had issued these instructions after considering the investigative material submitted by the CID.

The Attorney General has instructed the Director of the CID to obtain an arrest warrant from court and to arrest the former SriLankan Airlines CEO and his wife Priyanka Niyomali Wijenayake as suspects on charges of money laundering in the re-fleet deal between SriLankan Airlines and Airbus.

In his letter to the CID Director, the AG states that a reasonable suspicion has arisen that there is sufficient evidence to name Kapila Chandrasena and his wife as suspects for the charge of money laundering.

He therefore instructs the CID to name them as suspects, request and obtain a warrant from a magistrate’s court, to record statements from the suspects and produced them before the court.

The AG also instructed the CID Director to immediately submit the investigative material and documents to the Director General of the Bribery Commission with a report for necessary action as sufficient evidence have been presented to prove that Kapila Chandrasena has also committed crimes under provisions of the Bribery Act.

The President had ordered a probe into accusations of bribery by European planemaker Airbus to pave the way for the sale of aircraft to state-run carrier SriLankan Airlines, after the firm agreed to a settlement with regulators.

Sri Lanka was among the countries whose officials figured in a US$4-billion settlement Airbus agreed with European and US regulators, as having been accused of getting bribes to clinch sales of its aircraft.

Sri Lanka will conduct “a comprehensive investigation into reports of allegations over financial irregularities”, the office of President Rajapaksa said in a brief statement on Sunday.

Detailed findings from Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said Airbus had hired the wife of a Sri Lankan Airlines executive as its intermediary and misled export credit agency UKEF over her name and gender, while paying US$2 million to her company.

In a statement, SriLankan Airlines said its chairman and board had directed the management to cooperate fully with any government agency regarding any investigation or prosecution.

The board had also told the management to “preserve and study all available internal documentation with a view to take all possible corrective future action,” it added in Sunday’s statement.
The alleged corruption in dealings between Airbus and SriLankan Airlines took place between July 2011 and June 2015, the SFO added.

Saturday’s announcement of the Airbus settlement followed a nearly four-year investigation spanning sales to more than a dozen overseas markets.

-With inputs from agencies