Sri Lanka's ex-first lady arrested over alleged misuse of children's hospital donations

What the report says

Sri Lanka’s former first lady, Shiranthi Rajapaksa, has been arrested by anti-corruption officials in Colombo over allegations that a charity linked to her misused donations meant for a children’s hospital. According to BBC World News, investigators are questioning the 73-year-old wife of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa about 10 million rupees collected by the Siriliya Saviya charity for a specialised scanner for Colombo’s Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital.

Officials say the scanner had already been donated by the Chinese government, raising questions about how the charity funds were handled. Rajapaksa has denied wrongdoing and says the money was not taken. A spokesperson for Mahinda Rajapaksa said the funds remain in the charity’s accounts and that no fraud occurred. She was arrested at the family’s home in Colombo two days after returning to Sri Lanka from Singapore, where she had been receiving medical treatment.

The case comes as President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government has reopened several corruption inquiries involving members of the Rajapaksa family. BBC noted that the family dominated Sri Lankan politics for years, and that public anger over economic collapse helped bring an end to that era in 2022. The arrest adds to a broader pattern of legal scrutiny facing the former president’s relatives, including separate cases involving his sons.