Sri Lankan lawmaker Namal Rajapaksa faces 24 charges relating to an alleged bribe of 100 million rupees, about $300,000, connected with SriLankan Airlines' purchase of Airbus aircraft. Prosecutors told a Colombo court that formal charges had been filed in the High Court, and the indictment also names Shamindra Rajapaksa, Priyanka Niyomalie and Biz Solutions (Pvt) Ltd. Rajapaksa, the son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, denies wrongdoing. He was arrested on September 4, 2026, after questioning by Sri Lanka's Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, appeared before a three-judge High Court bench on October 28, 2026, and was ordered to return on November 19 while remaining in custody, according to local news outlets cited in the report.
The allegations relate to the national carrier's 2013 order for six Airbus A330-300s and four A350-900s; the A350s were never delivered. Investigators allege funds linked to the transaction moved through overseas companies and bank accounts before reaching Rajapaksa. Specifically, an alleged $800,000 transfer went from a Singapore account held by Biz Solutions to Sabre Vision Holdings, a company owned by a Sri Lankan businessman, who investigators charge then paid 100 million rupees in bribes in 2014 and 2015. In 2021, SriLankan Airlines sought $1 billion from Airbus for damages, reputational harm and other costs, demanded cancellation of its four-A350-900 agreement, and sought return of $19 million in advance payments. This followed the wider Airbus corruption investigation, in which Airbus agreed in January 2020 to pay more than $3.9 billion to resolve bribery and export-control cases with authorities in the US, France and the United Kingdom; the British case covered payments involving Sri Lanka and four other countries. Former SriLankan Airlines CEO Kapila Chandrasena, who had faced charges connected with the aircraft purchase, was found dead in Colombo in May 2026.