Sajin Vaas Money Laundering case trial begins before Colombo HC

The Colombo High Court Money Laundering case against former UPFA MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena began its trial before High Court Judge Gihan Kulatunge yesterday. At outset of trial court served the amended charges to Mr. Gunawardean and he pleaded not guilty for the charges after reading out the charges to the accused by the Court mudliyar. However Mr. Gunawardena’s Senior Counsel Jeewantha Jayasinghe pleaded that the defence should be given an opportunity to inspect the visuals in the Computers because the prosecution had stated that only seven hard disks could be open for inspection.the Judge ruled that it could be taken up as an issue for argument during the trial.

At the commencement of trial JVP Trade Union activist Wasantha Samarasinghe who is the complaint to the case gave evidence led by Senior State Counsel Thusith Mudalige. Mr.vass Gunawardena was indicted by the Attorney General for laundering Rs.306.26 million which is an offence under Section 3 [1] [a] of the Money Laundering Act No 05 of 2006 as amended by Act No 40 of 2011.

The CID investigation conducted had revealed that Gunawardena owned several companies under the name ‘COSMOS’ which had 21 companies at the time he gave nominations to contest the 2010 Parliamentary election. Though he had resigned from the directorship of all those companies and transferred his shares in the name of his wife before he became a member of the 14th Parliament had effectively operated those companies during his period of tenor as MP. The CID investigations had revealed that Gunawardena has made suspicious transactions using 7 out of the 21 companies. He has allegedly deposited over Rs.458.73 million in accounts of those companies. It has been further revealed that he had withdrawn cash from those accounts even after resigning from the directorship of those companies.