Three top directors of the Ceylinco Group - Ms Padmini Karunanayake, Daniel Jegasothy and Bandula Ranaweera - were remanded by the Mount Lavinia Chief Magistrate Harsha Setunga on Thursday in connection with the Golden Key (GK) fraud case.
In other GK developments this week, three chartered accountants – Prof Lakshman R. Watawala, Nelson Nagasinghe and Mahendra Panditha – were endorsed by the Supreme Court on Monday as a committee to re-value assets of the Golden Key (GK) Company, and its present and past directors.
The three persons remanded on Thursday were Deputy Chairpersons of different segments of the Group that has been under fire since the collapse of the GK group. Defence counsel objecting to the application to remand them said there was no fresh evidence against them and that they have not broken their bail conditions. Two others, Shehara Fernando and Anita Casim, were ordered to appear in Courts when noticed. Shehara Fernando was ordered to make a statement to the CID. The Magistrate ordered that the passports of the suspects be surrendered to Courts.
Ceylinco Chairman Lalith Kotelawala, former GK Deputy Chairman Khavan Perera and several others are already in remand in connection with the fraud which led to the collapse of the company and a string of failures in the group. Deputy Solicitor General Sarath Jayamanne told court that there was sufficient evidence to show the three suspects had been involved in the misappropriation at GK.
So far the CID has examined 47 files out of more than 1000 files found at a Ceylinco warehouse which has valuable details of GK. In his submissions he said that Shehara Fernando knew the whereabouts of the third suspect Sicile Kotelawala, who is absconding. Mr Jayamanna also told court that travel documents found in Kotelawala’s office revealed that the latter was planning to go abroad on December 30, several days after the GK crashed. |
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