The Permanent High Court at Bar has announced that the verdict of the bribery case against President’s former Chief of Staff I.H.K. Mahanama and the former Chairman of the State Timber Corporation (STC) Piyadasa Dissanayake will be delivered on December 19.
The case was taken up before Special High Court Judges Sampath Abeykoon, Sampath Wijeratne and Champa Janaki Rajaratne today (04).
Mahanama and Dissanayake were arrested by the Bribery Commission for allegedly soliciting a bribe of Rs. 20 million from an Indian businessman named K. Nagaraja in order to transfer the machinery equipment belonging to the Kantale Sugar Factory in May 2018. According to reports, the total amount of the bribe they had demanded from the said businessman was Rs. 54 million.
Following a lengthy trial, the three-judge bench concluded the hearings of the case today.
The Bribery Commission had laid 24 charges against the two defendants and 46 persons were named as witnesses of the case.
