Mahinda, Gota take cover behind affidavits and supporting documents
The affidavits and supporting documents of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and other key persons facing allegations of largescale fraud and corruption at SriLankan Airlines (SriLankan), SriLankan Catering and Mihin Lanka, were presented and marked at the Commission of Inquiry’s ( CoI) public sittings this week.
Some of the other key figures and witnesses whose affidavits were marked are former Chair men of SriLankan Nishantha Wickramasinghe and Harry Jayawardena, former Monitoring Minister and CEO o f Mihin Sajin de Vass Gunawardena, former Secretary to the Treasury P. B Jayasundara, former Minister Kab i r H a s h i m , f o r mer Diplomats Udayanga Weerathunga and Jaliya Wickramasuriya, former CEOs of SriLankan Suren Ratwatte and Manoj de Va s s Gumawardena. The affidavit of the controversial former CEO of SriLankan, Kapila Chandrasena is yet to be marked at the open hearings.
This is the alternative modus operandi the team from the Attor ney General’s ( AG) Department resorted to, as per the CoI Act, as the aforementioned key figures opted to send their affidavits, instead of appearing in person at the hearings.
Accordingly, Secretary to the CoI, Ariyadasa Cooray presented the affidavits and supporting documents, including the statements recorded at the CID, and the questionnaires sent by the CoI, along with the recipients’ responses. A CoI source told the Sunday Times, the questionnaires were sent requesting clarifications from the witnesses, on the contents of their affidavits and the allegations they face, as the Commissioners and the team from the AG' s Department would not be able to question them in person at the hearings.
In addition to the various allegations of mass fraud and corruption, witnesses are liable to be charged with perjury and contempt of court, if they are found attempting to mislead the CoI in their affidavits, another source informed.
“All affidavits are prepared under oath and, as per the CoI Act, the CoI is empowered to make observations on instances of perjury in their final report,” a legal source said. “The parties filing charges, based on the report, can then directly charge them with perjury in a court of law.”
Evidence led during the CoI’s public hearings showed many contradictory claims and statements made by different witnesses, on the same issue.
The source declared that, ‘ quite a number of witnesses’ were found to have deliberately misled the CoI with false statements. In one notable instance, the highest ranking officials of the Central Bank lied under oath, regarding the procedures for issuing Treasury Bonds to SriLankan, they revealed.
“Findings from the investigations and a contradictory testimony from one bold witness revealed that their seniors had diabolically lied to the CoI,” they said. “However, the judgment and recommendations are to be made by the Commissioners in their report and then followed up by the President’s Office and the Judiciary.”
The CoI’s term was to expire on May 31, 2019 but, following numerous requests by the CoI to the President’s Office, the latter had granted a month's extension, to end on June 30.
Secretary Cooray told the Sunday Times they had requested for more than a month, but the President’s Office, which had previously been firm on the May 31 deadline, had agreed only to a month.
The AG’s team had wanted longer to investigate further and question some of the witnesses at the public hearings. There were attempts to garner information from European authorities regarding Airbus’s operations with SriLankan at that end, but time constraints and a lack of support from the authorities in Colombo, had hindered this.
“This is hundreds of billions of rupees swindled by corrupt officials during a period spanning 36 years. That is 12 years for each company. It takes time and much effort to study and investigate this. It cannot be a shovel to wheelbarrow job,” one source remarked.