Fabricated graphic falsely claims Sri Lanka's foreign minister accused powerful family of murder
- Published on July 28, 2026 at 09:05
- 2 min read
- By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka
The death of Sri Lanka's former police chief in July has prompted false claims online that Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath accused the once-powerful Rajapaksa family of being responsible. But the minister denied making the allegation which was circulated in a fabricated news-style post. Police also said the Rajapaksa family is not under investigation in connection with the death.
"If Rajapaksa can do things like this without power, then there's no point in you being in power, right?" read a Sinhala-language caption of a Facebook post shared on July 18, 2026.
The post was shared alongside an image featuring Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath that mimics the graphics style of a local news outlet Dasatha Lanka News (archived here and here).
"The Rajapaksa demon took the life of former Inspector General of Police - Vijitha Herath," read the text imposed on the image.
The Rajapaksa political dynasty -- accused of corruption and war crimes -- dominated Sri Lankan politics for about two decades until they were ousted by protesters during the island nation's unprecedented economic crisis in 2022 (archived here, here, and here).
The false claim circulated a day after the death of Sri Lanka's 35th Inspector General of Police, Chandana Deepal Wickramaratne, commonly known as C.D. Wickramaratne (archived here and here).
The police initially said that Wickramaratne had taken his own life, but later reported that he died of gunshot wounds (archived links here, here and here).
Similar claims were posted in public Facebook groups with a combined membership of more than 523,000 users.
However, the claim is false.
A reverse image search of the purported news graphic led to a Facebook video posted by Siyatha News on September 27, 2024 (archived link).
In the video titled "Visa will be issued under the previous system," Foreign Minister Herath discusses restoring the previous visa issuance system.
The same clip was published on the minister's official Facebook page (archived link).
Contacted by AFP, Herath denied making the claim.
"No, I didn't say anything about former IGP," the foreign minister said in a WhatsApp message on July 22, 2026.
Suneth Weerasooriya, assistant manager of Dasatha Web News, also confirmed to AFP via WhatsApp on July 22 that the outlet had not published any such news .
Separately, Sri Lanka police say the Rajapaksa family is not currently under investigation.
Police spokesperson F.U. Wootler told AFP on July 24 that no complaint has been filed against them in relation to the death of the former police chief.
AFP has previously debunked false claims linked to the Rajapaksa family and other claims stemming from false news graphics.
Copyright © AFP 2017-2026. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
