Arrested Customs officers remanded till Oct. 30

(Published in Daily Mirror on 17/10/2015)

By Shehan Chamika Silva

The three Customs Officers, who were arrested by the Bribery Commission for soliciting and accepting the highest ever bribe of Rs. 125 million from a motor spare parts importer, were ordered to be remanded till October 30 after being produced before Colombo Chief Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya.

Bribery Commission Director General Ms. Dilrukshi Wickramasinghe, producing the three suspects, Sudheera Parakrama Gunadasa, Jagath Gunathilaka and Upali Perera, requested the Magistrate to order the prisons authorities to allow only the immediate family members and Lawyers of them to visit the suspects, since investigations carried out so far had revealed the involvement of two other accomplices to the incident.

Magistrate Pilapitiya accordingly ordered the Prisons superintendent to remand the suspects at the Kaduwela Remand Prison.

He also ordered that a document for the identification had to be tendered if anyone other than their immediate family members or lawyers wanted to visit the suspects.

According to the Commission, the three suspects, including a Deputy Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent allegedly agreed to release a stock of spare parts imported for the use of the SLTB if they paid them Rs. 150 million.

The suspects had allegedly told the importer that duty on the imported spare parts was amounting to Rs. 1500 million.