Overview
- Yoshitha Rajapaksa was taken into custody by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption after voluntarily appearing for questioning and a Colombo court later granted him bail with a travel ban while the inquiry continues.
- The Bribery Commission says investigators are probing claims that he was recruited into the Sri Lanka Navy in 2006 without meeting required academic qualifications and that the government paid for his officer training at Britain’s Royal Naval College in Dartmouth.
- Authorities arrested him on an aiding and abetting charge related to recruitment and use of state funds for overseas training as part of a fact‑finding inquiry rather than a final criminal verdict.
- Yoshitha already faces two separate money‑laundering cases, a prior foreign travel ban and prosecutions over a house purchase and other transactions, so the new probe adds to existing legal constraints on him.
- The case is one of several renewed investigations under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government and could lead to extended court proceedings as investigators examine whether recruitment rules or approvals were changed to benefit him.