Top defence officials have explaiend that the arrest was made after a year-long investigation, which confirmed, through the perusal of around 12,000 email messages that he had functioned as head of CSN television channel.

The president and the prime minister have stressed that the accuracy of the allegations against politicians and their family members should be verified before arrest.

Accusations

Navy Lt. Yoshitha Rajapaksa, second son of ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, CSN CEO Nishantha Ranatunga and directors Rohan Weliwita, Ashan Fernando and Capt. Dissanayake are already being detained.

They stand accused of conspiring and aiding to defraud state funds, faking documents, criminal breach of trust with regard to state funds and abusing state funds.

The CSN was started with a Rs. 100 million credit from Cosmo, and a financial irregularity has taken place when repaying half of the loan.

The channel was maintained with state funds and no information has been
given with regard to millions of rupees it had received.

Also, there are serious issues with regard to CSN’s importation of orbi-tracks from a British company and the invoices submitted to Customs for their clearance.

The channel’s account has not paid Rs. 90 million spent on the clearance of the machines, and the FCID told courts the money could have been earned through unscrupulous means.