{"id":71569,"date":"2017-11-13T14:20:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T21:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=71569"},"modified":"2017-11-13T14:20:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T21:20:15","slug":"sri-lanka-detains-top-rajapakse-aide-on-fraud-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/13\/sri-lanka-detains-top-rajapakse-aide-on-fraud-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka detains top Rajapakse aide on fraud allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy MailOnline\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<div>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Sri Lanka Monday detained a senior aide to former strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse on allegations of fraud, the second official close to the ex-leader swept up in a blitz on corruption.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Gamini Senarath turned himself in to authorities on Monday and will face court over allegations of fraud involving the construction of the Hyatt Hotel in Colombo.<\/p>\n<p>Police told a court last month that Senarath was wanted in connection with the disappearance of $27 million in state funds earmarked for the hotel building.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He surrendered to the Colombo Fort magistrate&#8217;s court and was remanded till Wednesday when another hearing will take place,&#8221; a court official said.<\/p>\n<p>In September another close aide of Rajapakse was jailed for three years for redirecting $4 million of government money toward Rajapakse&#8217;s unsuccessful 2015 re-election bid.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-2189a3e0982efec6\" class=\"blkBorder img-share b-loaded\" src=\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1\/2017\/11\/13\/13\/wire-1713646-1510578669-341_634x399.jpg\" alt=\"Lalith Weeratunga (3L) is escorted from the Colombo High Court in September after being convicted on corruption charges\" width=\"634\" height=\"399\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Lalith Weeratunga (3L) is escorted from the Colombo High Court in September after being convicted on corruption charges<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The former top civil servant, Lalith Weeratunga, has since appealed the conviction.<\/p>\n<p>Current President Maithripala Sirisena has vowed to investigate allegations that Rajapakse&#8217;s family and friends siphoned billions from Sri Lanka&#8217;s coffers during his nearly 10-year rule.<\/p>\n<p>Two of Rajapakse&#8217;s three sons, including legislator Namal, have been charged with money-laundering. Those cases are still pending.<\/p>\n<p>Other family members face allegations of corruption. The former president himself is not under investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera recently announced the freezing of $33 million in bank deposits belonging to members of the former regime, pending money-laundering investigations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy MailOnline\u00a0 Sri Lanka Monday detained a senior aide to former strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse on allegations of fraud, the second official close to the ex-leader swept up in a blitz on corruption. Gamini Senarath turned himself in to authorities on Monday and will face court over allegations of fraud involving the construction of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}