The United States has sanctioned two Sri Lankan officials and their immediate families over corruption, rendering them unable to enter the country in a move to mark International Human Rights Day.
Sri Lanka’s former Ambassador to Russia Udayanga Weeratunga and the former CEO of Sri Lanka Airlines Kapila Chandrasena have both been sanctioned for their “involvement in significant corruption”.
They become the latest Sri Lankan officials to be barred from entering the United States, joining several other Sri Lankan war criminals have had travel bans placed on them in recent years.
The latest move from the US State Department however marks the first time Sri Lankans have been sanctioned over corruption allegations.
According to the US government, “Weeratunga orchestrated and personally benefitted from a corrupt scheme involving the procurement of MiG aircraft for the Sri Lankan Air Force”.
Chandrasena meanwhile “accepted a bribe while serving in his capacity as Sri Lankan Airlines CEO in exchange for ensuring Sri Lanka purchased Airbus aircraft for over market value”.
As part of this action, both of their immediate family members are also designated.
Udayanga Weeratunga
Weeratunga, a relative of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, is alleged to have personally acquired almost US$ 14 million, as part of a Sri Lankan military deal for four Ukraine-built MIG-27 aircraft in 2006.
The planes supplied to the Rajapaksa regime were used to indiscriminately bomb Tamil civilians in the closing stages of the armed conflict and a portion of the money used to purchase the planes were redirected to close associates of the Rajapaksas.
Murdered journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge was investigating the deal shortly before his assassination. His daughter Ahimsa Wickrematunge detailed the investigation into the deal in 2021.
“This is the crux of the MiG deal:
- The Singaporean Lee family paid $7,833,000 to Ukrinmash for goods and services to be given to the Sri Lanka Air Force
- The Sri Lanka Air Force unwittingly paid the Lee family $14,661,944.24 for those same goods and services, an 87 per cent markup
- The Sri Lanka Air Force received the goods and services they were promised, and thus they were none the wiser to the scam"
"So that is the MiG deal," she writes.
"Sri Lanka paid an 87 per cent commission to Singaporean wheeler dealers to buy arms and services used to defeat the LTTE. The Singaporeans paid at least $400,000 as a kickback to Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s cousin Udayanga Weeratunga, which we know that he used to buy himself a penthouse in Dubai. It looks like a good chunk of the remaining $6,428,547.24 made its way to accounts controlled by prominent Sri Lankans. Someday, if investigations are allowed to resume, we may find out for certain who exactly pocketed these bribes."
Weeratunga has also been accused of selling weapons to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and had his diplomatic passport withdrawn.
Kapila Chandrasena
In 2020, Chandrasena and his wife were arrested, after a corruption scandal involving the French aerospace company Airbus revealed the couple may have accepted millions of dollars in bribes.
The arrests came after Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) found alleged corruption in dealings between Airbus and Sri Lankan Airlines date back to between July 2011 and June 2015. SFO found that Airbus had paid US$2 million to Priyanka Wijenayakathe, the wife of the then Sri Lankan Airlines executive Kapila Chandrasena.
It is alleged these bribes were given by Airbus to secure a multi-billion-dollar aircraft deal. Investigators in Britain have accused Airbus of bribing associates to "obtain or retain business or advantage". As a result in January, a French court had fined Airbus €3.6 billion ($4 billion).
Wijenayakathe reportedly accepted the bribes to “influence” SriLankan Airlines to purchase 10 aircraft from the Airbus in 2013, during the previous Rajapaksa regime. The order of 4 such aircraft was subsequently cancelled, leaving Sri Lanka to pay a penalty of US$154 million.
The latest set of sanctions by Washington add to the several already in place on individuals accused of war crimes and other human rights abuses.
