MENAKA WIJESUNDERA J.

The accused respondent (hereinafter referred to as the respondent) had been indicted in the High Court of Colombo for the offences of

1) Knowingly purchasing the property valued at Rs 325 lakhs from the allegedly illegal money from the proceeds of a narcotics transaction,

2) Knowingly purchasing the property valued at Rs 265 lakhs from the allegedly monies from narcotics transactions.

And there by committing offences of Money Laundering.

The respondent had pleaded not guilty in the High Court and the trial had commenced and the prosecution had led the evidence of 24 witnesses and had marked documents from P1 to P28.

Upon the conclusion of the prosecution the defense had been called and the respondent had made a dock statement, and the trial judge had acquitted the respondent on 20.6.2014 and the appellant being aggrieved by the instant acquittal of the respondent had filed the instant appeal.

The prosecution had alleged that the property depicted in the deed of sale 1546 and 1510 had been purchased by the allegedly reputed drug dealer namely Methias Velaauden alias Mervin in the names of the respondent and two others.

The prosecution alleges that the trial judge has failed to consider the fact that the money spent on the two properties could never have been the lawful monies of the respondent because the business the respondent is engaged in had been a business of manufacturing cement bricks, the hardware and the motor vehicles could never have generated such monies as per the evidence of the prosecution. The prosecution had further averred that the family business of the respondent had hired a manager and large amounts of monies had transacted through his account which the manager had said in evidence that it had come through the transaction of the respondent’s husbands businesses of money lending, the hardware shop he owned and sales of motor vehicles. But he had not been able to say it with charity. But a witness to the deeds mentioned above says that the known businesses of Mervin were the ones mentioned previously.

The daughter of the owner of one of the lands which was purchased by the accused had said that Mervin had brought the monies which transacted in gunny bags.

The notary who attested the deeds had said in evidence that the properties concerned had been undervalued and Mervin had paid for the purchases.

Daughter of Mervin and the accused had said in evidence that the audit report pertaining to the legal businesses of the accused is correct and that is about rupees one hundred thousand a month.

The prosecution had further led evidence to show that the husband of the accused had been arrested and remanded for huge quantities of narcotics but the cases had not been concluded because he had been abducted and not found thereafter.

The appellant further alleges that the trial judge has further misdirected himself in concluding that the appellant has failed to prove that the proceeds used to purchase the two properties above named had been obtained from unlawful activates of the husband of the respondent.

The contention of the respondent is that although the prosecution has alleged that the husband of the respondent is a narcotics dealer it is nowhere proved that it is so, and they further say that at the time of the transaction of the above mentioned deeds the respondent had been nowhere near the place.

Having considered the submissions of both parties now this Court draws its attention to the law pertaining to the instant matter, Money laundering can be defined as cleansing black money in to white or rather legalizing the illegally obtained monies. In the offence of money laundering there are three types of characters who are liable for the offence, they are, 1) The principle offender, 2) The abettor, who abets by having it in his or her name or, 3) The financial institution who has acted rashly or negligently.

The offence of money laundering is defined in the act under section 3 which separates the section in to