Ex-SriLankan CEO claims Rs. 60 Million paid to Mahinda Rajapaksa in Airbus deal

2026-03-19 - 09:24

Sri Lanka’s Bribery Commission told court on March 19 that former SriLankan Airlines CEO Kapila Chandrasena has said Rs. 60 million was paid to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in three separate payments linked to the controversial Airbus aircraft deal. The disclosure was made when the case on the Airbus transaction was taken up before the Colombo Magistrate’s Court today. According to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), this claim came from a statement made by Chandrasena, who is a suspect in the case. During the hearing, the Magistrate ordered that Chandrasena be further remanded until April 2, 2026. Chandrasena was arrested on March 12, 2026, after arriving at CIABOC to give a statement over the ongoing investigation. The probe is focused on an alleged corrupt deal involving the planned purchase of 10 Airbus aircraft for SriLankan Airlines during the 2012-2013 period. The investigation is being carried out by CIABOC together with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). During that period, a proposal had been submitted to remove 13 aircraft from the SriLankan Airlines fleet and replace them with 14 new aircraft. As part of that plan, a contract was signed with the French aircraft maker Airbus to buy six A330 aircraft and four A350 aircraft. Details of a major fraud connected to the deal first came to light in January 2020 after findings from an investigation by the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) were made public. Investigations found that Airbus had promised to pay a bribe of US$ 16.84 million in connection with the deal to purchase the 10 aircraft. The British SFO investigation also revealed that US$ 2 million from that money had been paid into a bank account in Brunei belonging to a company owned by Chandrasena’s wife. Investigators further found that money received by the Brunei-based company in his wife’s name had later been transferred by Chandrasena through a Singapore bank account to his own account in Australia on several occasions. Further investigations have also shown that money from Singapore was transferred to two bank accounts in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, Shamindra Rajapaksa, the son of former Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, has been named as the third suspect in the case after it was revealed that US$ 160,000 had been credited to a bank account belonging to him in 2013.