Indictments against Yoshitha Rajapaksa and Wasantha Karannagoda

On August 20, indictments were handed over at the Colombo High Court to former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda and Yoshitha Rajapaksa, son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, accusing them of committing the offense of corruption by facilitating the recruitment of Mr. Yoshitha Rajapaksa as an executive cadet in the Sri Lanka Navy in 2006, despite him not possessing the required qualifications, and by sending him for a course at the Royal Naval College in Britain using government funds, outside the existing traditional procedure.

When the relevant case was called before Colombo High Court Judge Ravindra Premaratne, these indictments filed by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption were handed over to the defendants in open court. Subsequently, the judge ordered both to be released on personal bail of 10 million rupees each and also prohibited them from traveling abroad.

During these proceedings, a document containing the prosecution's admissions was presented to the court by the Bribery Commission's lawyer. The High Court Judge, after considering the presented facts, scheduled the case to be recalled on September 17 for a pre-trial conference.