The case filed against former UPFA MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena over a money laundering charge was yesterday fixed for February 11 by the Colombo High Court.
The case was taken up before Colombo High Court Judge Gihan Kulatunga.
At a previous hearing, the indictment was handed over to the accused and accused was released on a cash bail of Rs. 500,000 and two sureties of Rs. 5 million.
MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena has been indicted by the Attorney General (AG) on the charge of money laundering amounting to over Rs. 306.26 million, under Section 3(1)(a) of the Money Laundering Act No. 5 of 2006 as amended by Act No. 40 of 2011.
According to the AG’s Coordinating Officer, the scam was unearthed during an investigation conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on a complaint received in February 2015.
The CID investigation has revealed that Sajin de Vass Gunawardena owned a group of 21 companies under the name ‘COSMOS’ at the time he was to contest the Parliamentary election in 2010.
Although he has resigned from the directorship of all these companies and transferred his shares to his wife before he became a Member of the 14th Parliament, the evidence had revealed that he has effectively run the full operation of those companies even after he became an MP.
Although on paper he had distanced himself from those companies, the CID investigation revealed that Gunawardena had made suspicious transactions using seven of the 21 companies.
He has allegedly deposited over Rs. 458.73 million in this manner in the accounts of those companies.
The bank details of the accounts maintained in the names of those companies have reflected these deposits. It has been further revealed that Gunawardena used to withdraw cash from those companies although he did not have any legal bearing to do so, as he has rescinded his ownership and directorship of those companies.
Investigators found that neither Gunawardena nor his wife of their own admission have such a known income comparable to the vast sums of money he has made as deposits in those companies. It is pertinent to note that much of those deposits were made during his tenure as an MP in the 14th Parliament.
The deficit between all of those deposits and his and his wife’s income including company drawings he has made illegally, has been identified as Rs. 306, 268,194.76.
The AG’s Department earlier said that former MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena has failed to explain how he earned such an income to make those deposits especially at a time during which he acted as an elected MP from 2010 to 2015.
Add new comment