Mt. Lavinia Chief Magistrate Harsha Setunge yesterday refused the bail application filed by Ceylinco Consolidated Chairman Deshamanya Dr. Lalith Kotelawala, who has a bail application pending before the Supreme Court. Kotelawala is the first suspect in the 26-billion-rupee Golden Key Credit Card scam.

The second suspect Khavan Perera’s bail application is to be considered at a future date. The Magistrate also directed that the 8th suspect Padmini Karunanayake’s bail application be filed on the next date of hearing ––September 17.

State Counsel Damit Totawatte submitted that the Supreme Court had directed the suspects to set up modalities to initially pay one billion rupees to the depositors of the Golden Key Credit Card entity. Subsequent modes of repayment were to be submitted to later.

There are no funds left in Golden Key.

However, the F&G and Ceylinco Shiram entities of the Ceylinco Group are repaying their depositors.

These two entities continue to receive funds from investors.

He charged that some of the directors of the Golden Key had not disclosed their assets.

Even the first suspect had not fully revealed his assets.

Some of the ex employers of Golden Key were now unemployed but were not cooperating with investigators. The State was funding investigations.

The State Counsel filed an application for the employees to cooperate in the audit investigation process.

He objected to suspects been granted bail citing that present audit queries would be jeopardised.

Rienzi Arasakularatne PC, appearing for the first suspect submitted that the suspects were not expected to act the way the Attorney General wanted them to.

The first suspect had already submitted an assets and debits statement to the Attorney General’s Department.

The suspect had stated that the statement had been prepared on the basis of details obtained while he was held in custody.

The Attorney-at-Law appearing for the depositors asked how Rs. 26 billion could be paid when the initial Rs. 1 billion had not yet paid to the depositors.

He called for the sale of assets and proceeds to be deposited in an account.