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Fact Check
A photograph of the former Sri Lankan finance minister and youngest Rajapaksa brother, Basil Rajapaksa, in a hospital bed, claiming to be from May 2025 when he was scheduled to appear in court.
This photograph is from June 2015, when Basil Rajapaksa was at the Durdans Hospital in Colombo after being granted bail in a case relating to financial fraud.
The youngest of the Rajapaksa brothers and former finance minister, Basil Rajapaksa, failed to to appear at the Matara magistrate’s court on May 26, 2025, regarding charges of financial irregularities against him, with his lawyer informing the court that he was unwell to make a personal appearance.
The financial crimes investigation division filed charges against him and four othes in 2017 for allegedly using illegal earnings amounting to LKR 50 million to buy land in the Eliyakanda area of Matara.
He is currently out on bail, and was scheduled to appear before the Matara court on May 26, 2025. But his lawyer claimed that Basil Rajapaksa was sick and receiving treatment after falling off a chair and injuring himself at his residence in the US. More information about the case can be found here and here.
Amid these reports, a photograph of Basil Rajapaksa in a hospital bed has been going viral on Facebook and Instagram, with many wishing him well, while others mocked his alleged injury. One Facebook post, sharing the photograph, stated in Sinhala, “We must protect our country and race from those who make big claims about those same things.”
A few more claims can be found here, here, and here.
Due to the serious nature of the charges against Rajapaksa and his absence from Sri Lanka since September 2024, Newschecker decided to fact-check this claim.
After checking the image via reverse image search tools, we traced the the photograph to a video from June 2015, when Basil Rajapaksa was hospitalised after being granted bail on another case relating to the Divi Neguma Development programme. The image, we found, was a screenshot from his interview with a journalist from Ada Derana on June 23, 2015.
The video can be fully accessed here:
Snippets of the same video were also posted by the journalist Azzam Ameen on his X account in 2015 and Hiru News in 2016.
A Daily News report about the court proceedings from May 26, 2025, at the Matara Magistrate’s court specifies his lawyer, President’s Counsel Anil Silva, as saying “Your honour, my client had booked air tickets to return to the country on May 18 or 19. However, while in America, he fell from a chair and suffered neck and nerve damage. Doctors in America have recommended that he not fly for six months.”
The prosecution requested that his bail be revoked and he be extradited to Sri Lanka immediately, but this request was denied by the judge, Matara magistrate Aruna Buddhadasa, who stated that Rajapaksa must be present at the next hearing on November 21.
The viral photograph of Basil Rajapaksa in hospital is actually from 2015 and not 2025.
Our sources
‘I will only return to politics with Mahinda – Basil’, Video of an interview with Basil Rajapaksa, posted on the YouTube channel of Ada Derana, June 23, 2015
‘Victory Confirmed for the new Political Party – Basil Rajapaksa’, video posted on the YouTube channel of Hiru News, November 4, 2016
‘Basil fails to show up in Matara land case’, published in the Daily News, May 26, 2025
Twitter post by Azzam Ameen, journalist, dated June 21, 2015
Missing context
