The Colombo Magistrate’s Court has issued an order directing the officials of the relevant insurance companies to suspend for a period of one week the life insurance payments to beneficiaries on behalf of the late businessman Dinesh Schaffter who died under mysterious circumstances.

Colombo Additional Magistrate Rajindra Jayasuriya issued this order today (Nov. 08), after considering a request made by the Police Homicide and Organized Crimes Division to issue an order to the relevant officials of the insurance companies to suspend the payment of the insurance compensation to the concerned beneficiaries.

The request has been made in order to support the investigations being carried out pertaining to the death of the prominent businessman, which was recently ruled as a crime by the court.

On November 01, the Colombo Magistrate’s Court determined that the death of businessman Dinesh Schaffter occurred as a result of an external pressure applied on his neck and the facial area, after the five-member experts’ committee comprising Judicial Medical Officers appointed to uncover the actual cause of death of the late businessman Schaffter submitted its report on the post-mortems to the court.

Accordingly, the magistrate who ruled that a crime had been committed through this incident, ordered the Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to arrest the relevant suspects and produce them before the courts.

There, the Additional Magistrate ordered the CID to take measures to hand over the remains of the late businessman, which are currently placed at the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital, to his family members. She also ordered to provide necessary facilities for the burial of the remains at the Jawatte Cemetery, as per the previous court orders.

Former Director of the Janashakthi PLC Group, Dinesh Schaffter, was found tied up in his car at the General Cemetery in Borella on 15 December 2022 and died a day later while receiving treatment at the ICU of the National Hospital in Colombo.