By Roy Denish
Former State Minister Shasheendra Rajapaksa has been indicted in the Colombo High Court over an alleged Rs. 8.85 million compensation fraud linked to property damage during the 2022 protests. The Bribery Commission claims official influence was used to secure payments for an unauthorized structure on state land, placing another member of the Rajapaksa political dynasty under legal scrutiny.
The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has filed corruption indictments in the Colombo High Court against former State Minister Shasheendra Rajapaksa, a member of the country’s dominant political dynasty, alongside two other former officials.
The charges tie the powerful Rajapaksa family directly back into the legal fallout surrounding the widespread and violent public protests that gripped the island nation in 2022. Shasheendra Rajapaksa is the eldest son of former Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa and the nephew of former Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, both of whom faced massive public pressure during the country’s recent economic collapse.
The newly filed case consists of 10 charges detailing the alleged misuse of official influence to unlawfully secure 8.85 million rupees in compensation payments. According to prosecutors, the funds were claimed for damages inflicted during the May 2022 protests on a building and property located in the Sevanagala, Kiriibbanwewa area.
Subsequent investigations revealed that the damaged structure was an unauthorized building constructed on land belonging to the state-run Sri Lanka Mahaweli Authority.
The Bribery Commission alleges that between November 2023 and May 2024, Rajapaksa and his co-defendants pressured and influenced officials at the Office for Reparations to approve and process the payout, directly overriding an earlier institutional decision that had explicitly rejected compensation for the state-owned property.
The two other individuals named in the indictment are Sepalika Saman Kumari, the former Acting Director General of the Office for Reparations, and Keerthi Bandara Kotagama.
Rajapaksa has long been a key figure in the family’s traditional political stronghold in the south, serving previously as a Member of Parliament for the Monaragala District, a State Minister for agriculture, and the Chief Minister of the Uva Province from 2009 to 2015. He also held the prominent cultural role of lay custodian for the historic Ruhunu Maha Kataragama Devalaya.
The prosecution has presented a list of 30 witnesses and 38 pieces of documentary evidence to support the case as it moves to trial before the Colombo High Court.
