Why Sri Lanka's Rajapaksas Are Being Questioned Over Corruption and Crimes

Several members and allies of the powerful political dynasty, including the wife of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, are in custody.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – A court in the Sri Lankan capital has extended the custody of the wife of Sri Lanka's powerful former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was arrested last week on charges of misappropriating funds raised for a children's hospital.

The October 7 arrest of Shiranti Rajapaksa, 73, dealt a major blow to the once-powerful family that ruled Sri Lanka for nearly two decades before being ousted in a youth-led uprising in 2022.

A month before Shiranti's arrest, his 40-year-old son, Namal Rajapaksa, who is the national organizer of the Rajapaksa-controlled Sri Lanka Pudujana Pramona Party (SLPP), was arrested on bribery charges. He is still in custody.

The family, based in the Hambantota region of southern Sri Lanka, counts Mahinda, 80, as their charismatic patriarch.

Mahinda, who was elected prime minister in 2004 and president the following year, is admired by many of the country's ethnic Sinhalese Buddhist majority for his crackdown on Tamil separatist rebels who waged a 26-year civil war that ended in 2009.

Mahinda's younger brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, served as his defense minister during the election campaign against the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels who demanded a separate state in northern Sri Lanka.

According to United Nations estimates, nearly 40,000 civilians were killed in the final weeks of the civil war, and an international investigation into the alleged atrocities was launched. After the war, Mahinda was criticized for not doing enough to improve relations with the Tamils, who were banned from commemorating the war dead.

During Mahinda's rule, Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, also borrowed nearly $7 billion from China for infrastructure projects, many of which were mired in corruption.

Mahinda lost the 2015 election to former political ally Maithripala Sirisena, despite a constitutional change allowing him to serve a third term.

Following the deadly Easter Sunday 2019 bombings of churches and hotels blamed on an affiliate of the Islamic State (ISIS), Gotabaya, then a political novice, used anti-Muslim rhetoric to win the presidency – the second in his family to hold the post.

Gotabaya appointed Mahinda as Prime Minister and gave influential ministerial posts to his other brothers - Chamal and Basil - as well as Mahinda's son, Namal Rajapaksa.

As the family tightened their grip on an island hit first by the 2019 bombings and later by the coronavirus pandemic, they were also accused of economic mismanagement and widespread corruption.

The economic crisis sparked historic street protests in the summer of 2022, forcing Gotabaya to flee the country. A caretaker government ruled the country until the 2024 election when Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a 57-year-old Marxist, won the presidency on an anti-corruption platform, vowing to crack down on the Rajapaksa family and previous governments.

What are the accusations of corruption against the family?

The ongoing arrests and legal cases against members of the Rajapaksa family are seen as part of that promise.

Former First Lady Shiranti Rajapaksa was arrested last week by the Government's Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC).

The Cyrillia Savya Foundation, the charity she heads, is accused of misappropriating nearly 100 million rupees ($30,000) in donations to buy equipment for a children's hospital in the capital, Colombo.

Investigators told the court that an MRI scanner had already been donated by the Chinese government, but the charity allegedly continued to solicit donations for a scanner and misused the funds.

Sagara Kariyawasam, secretary general of the Sri Lanka Pudujana Pramona (SLPP), the party led by the Rajapaksa family, denies the claim.

He told Al Jazeera: "This is not true and the money is kept in the blocked bank account of Cyrillia Savia.

But the CIABOC told the court that their investigation showed that the money was used to buy the house and that they would initiate proceedings to freeze the property.

On Monday, his lawyers approached the court seeking anticipatory bail citing health reasons. But this request was rejected. Shiranti was presented to the court on Tuesday, which extended his custody until Friday.

Meanwhile, Mahinda's son Namal is on trial in a case involving the payment of a $30,000 bribe in a government deal with Airbus to buy planes for the national carrier.

He faces another investigation in which he is allegedly linked to a $211,000 bribe paid by a foreign private company to expedite the transfer of government land.

Both incidents apparently happened during his father's presidency.

Mahinda's other son Yoshita, 38, is also under investigation for money laundering, while Chamal Rajapaksa's 50-year-old son Shasheendra Rajapaksa is currently out on bail in connection with a corruption case.

Also, Basil, another Rajapaksa sibling, is facing an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court in a case related to the purchase of properties allegedly using illegal money. He is believed to be in the United States.

Last week, the Financial Crimes Investigation Department seized Basil's property in Matara, a coastal city in the south.

But it's not just corruption cases that haunt the powerful family.

Gotabaya has been banned from traveling abroad since the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings were staged to boost his popularity ahead of the 2019 presidential election.

Last week, a Sri Lankan court rejected his request to prevent his possible arrest in the ongoing investigation into the simultaneous bombings of three churches and three hotels that killed 279 people, 45 of them foreigners, in the worst attack on the popular tourist island.

In 2023, a whistleblower told English Channel 4 that former Sri Lankan intelligence chief Suresh Sali had met with the alleged bombers behind the 2019 attacks as part of a plot to influence the upcoming election.

Gotabaya announced his candidacy two days after the attacks, and his campaign focused on fighting "Islamic extremism." Sully was arrested under terrorism laws in February this year and is being investigated over the Easter Sunday bombings.

Ramindo Perera, a researcher of international law at the European University Institute in Italy, said it would have a "devastating effect" on the family if the Rajapaksa's alleged connection to the 2019 attacks were proven.

"Such revelations are likely to delegitimize the SLPP's position in Sri Lankan politics," he said. The party has been reduced to only three seats in the 225-member national parliament.

Last month, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court convicted 15 of the 24 Muslim men accused of involvement in the 2019 bombings, but the families of many of the victims said they were still waiting for "substantial" answers.

How have the people of Sri Lanka reacted to the research?

President Dissanayake said at a public rally in Nikawerariya in northwestern Sri Lanka on Sunday that the law would apply to everyone equally.

"Those who gained social power, political power and positional power used these powers to be above the law, but in this government, the law is the same for everyone," he said.

He added: "If anyone believes that the law does not reach them, we are now proving that there is no place that the law cannot reach and no one is beyond its reach."