COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Namal Rajapaksa, a lawmaker and the eldest son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was arrested Friday after being questioned for more than five hours over an alleged bribery case linked to SriLankan Airlines’ purchase of Airbus aircraft.
The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, or CIABOC, arrested Mr. Rajapaksa after he appeared at its Colombo office on Friday morning in response to a summons.
Mr. Rajapaksa, 40, is the national organizer of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, or SLPP, and one of the most prominent members of the Rajapaksa political family.
CIABOC said the investigation concerns an alleged bribe connected to the purchase of wide-body aircraft for SriLankan Airlines during the administration of Mr. Rajapaksa’s father.
According to the commission, investigators are examining payments totaling €1,454,651.24 and $800,000, which were worth about 100 million Sri Lankan rupees at the time. At current exchange rates, the same amounts would be worth about Rs. 817 million.
Investigators allege that the money was paid by a Sri Lankan businessman on several occasions in 2013 and 2014 in connection with the aircraft transaction.
CIABOC said the money was deposited into an account held by Biz Solutions Inc. at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore and was later transferred to an account at OCBC Bank in Singapore belonging to Sabre Vision Holdings Ltd., a company belonging to the same Sri Lankan businessman.
Investigators have been examining the movement of money through the Singapore accounts and whether some of it ultimately reached Mr. Rajapaksa.
Two payments of $400,000 each were transferred from the Biz Solutions account to Sabre Vision Holdings in November and December 2013, according to information that emerged during earlier investigations into the transaction. Businessman Nimal Perera was identified by investigators as the beneficial owner of Sabre Vision.
A businessman questioned in the investigation has told investigators that he facilitated transactions involving money connected to the Airbus deal and that money was handed to Mr. Rajapaksa, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Mr. Rajapaksa has previously denied wrongdoing and rejected allegations that he received illicit money connected to the aircraft deal.
CIABOC said Friday that the decision to arrest him was based on evidence gathered during the investigation, including statements from the businessman, information obtained from Airbus officials in France, and electronic and other evidence relating to the transactions.
Mr. Rajapaksa had been ordered to appear before the commission at 9 a.m. Friday. He was questioned for more than five hours before being arrested in the afternoon.
A CIABOC official said he would be produced before a magistrate. The precise charges he will face were not immediately clear.
His arrest came three days after Mr. Rajapaksa publicly predicted that he could be jailed before an opposition rally planned for Sept. 12 in Anuradhapura.
Speaking to reporters on Sept. 1, Mr. Rajapaksa accused the government of trying to suppress the opposition and said it might put him behind bars if it believed a large crowd would attend the SLPP rally.
“If the government realises that a large crowd will come to Anuradhapura on the 12th, they may even put Namal Rajapaksa behind bars before then,” he said.
The government rejected the allegation.
Health and Mass Media Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said this week that law-enforcement agencies were acting on evidence and court proceedings, not according to the dates of political rallies. He said investigators would make arrests if they uncovered evidence of wrongdoing.
The Airbus Investigation
The investigation stems from SriLankan Airlines’ decision in 2013 to acquire 10 Airbus aircraft and lease four others as part of a major fleet renewal program.
The scale of the alleged corruption surrounding the transaction became public in 2020, when a British court approved a deferred prosecution agreement between Airbus and Britain’s Serious Fraud Office as part of a wider international investigation into corruption at the European aircraft manufacturer.
The British court found that Airbus employees had offered as much as $16.84 million to an intermediary to influence SriLankan Airlines’ purchase of 10 aircraft and lease of four others. Of that amount, $2 million was ultimately paid.
The intermediary was later identified in Sri Lankan investigations as Biz Solutions Inc., a company established by Priyanka Neomali Wijenayake, the wife of Kapila Chandrasena, who was chief executive of SriLankan Airlines when the aircraft deal was negotiated.
The British proceedings found that Airbus employees had concealed the intermediary’s connection to a SriLankan Airlines executive and provided misleading information when questions were raised about the arrangement.
Mr. Chandrasena and Ms. Wijenayake were arrested in Sri Lanka in 2020 after details of the payments emerged from the international Airbus investigation.
CIABOC revived the investigation in recent years and arrested Mr. Chandrasena again in March. The commission alleged that he and his wife had established the company in Brunei, opened its bank account in Singapore and received about €1.45 million connected to the aircraft deal.
Mr. Chandrasena has also disputed the investigation.
Earlier this year, his lawyers submitted an affidavit alleging that CIABOC investigators had pressured and intimidated him to make statements implicating Mahinda Rajapaksa, Namal Rajapaksa and others. He alleged that references to members of the Rajapaksa family were not made voluntarily.
Mahinda Rajapaksa was questioned by the commission for nearly two hours in May over the Airbus transaction. The Criminal Investigation Department also questioned Namal Rajapaksa over the case in February 2025.
Mr. Chandrasena was later found dead, hanging at the home of his brother-in-law, former Sri Lankan cricket captain Aravinda de Silva. The circumstances surrounding his death have raised questions as the Airbus investigation has continued.
Friday’s arrest is the first time Namal Rajapaksa has been taken into custody in connection with the Airbus investigation.
The case is one of several major corruption investigations revived since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his National People’s Power government came to power after campaigning on a pledge to prosecute corruption and recover stolen public assets.
The underlying Airbus bribery scheme has already been established through proceedings overseas. Airbus reached settlements with authorities in Britain, France and the United States in 2020 after admitting misconduct involving aircraft sales in several countries.
