Rajapaksa left the island nation under military escort in July when a huge crowd stormed his official residence after months of angry protests against his government. The 73-year-old announced his resignation from Singapore and spent weeks under virtual house arrest in a Bangkok hotel lobbying his successor to allow his return. Leaders of the protest campaign that toppled his government said Rajapaksa, who lost his presidential immunity after leaving power, should now be brought to justice. “Gotabaya came back because no country is willing to accept him, he has nowhere to hide,” Joseph Stalin, the leader of a teachers’ union that helped mobilize the protesters, told AFP. “He should be arrested immediately for causing such misery to the 22 million people of Sri Lanka. He must be prosecuted for his crimes.” Rajapaksa’s government was accused of chaotic mismanagement as Sri Lanka’s economy slid into an unprecedented recession. The crisis has seen severe food shortages, major power outages and long queues at gas stations for scarce fuel supplies as the country ran out of foreign currency to pay for vital imports. “He cannot live freely as if nothing had happened,” said Stalin, who was named after the former Soviet leader. Rajapaksa arrived at Colombo’s main international airport and was showered with flowers by a welcoming group of ministers and senior politicians upon disembarking. He was driven in a security escort to a new official residence in the capital provided by the government of his successor, President Ranil Wickremesinghe. Rajapaksa’s younger brother Basil, a former finance minister, met Wickremesinghe last month and asked for protection to allow the ousted leader to return. Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s motorcade leaves the Bandaranaike Airport VIP complex in Colombo on Friday. Photo: Chamila Karunarathne/EPA Rights activists have vowed to push for Rajapaksa’s prosecution on a range of charges, including his alleged role in the 2009 killing of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge. “We welcome his decision to return so that we can bring him to justice for the crimes he has committed,” Tharindu Jayawardhana, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Young Journalists Association, said on Friday. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Several corruption cases filed against Rajapaksa were dropped after his election to the presidency. Rajapaksa also faces charges in a US court over the killing of Wickrematunge and the torture of Tamil prisoners at the end of the island’s traumatic civil war in 2009. Rajapaksa won a landslide election in 2019 after promising “visions of prosperity and splendor” but saw his popularity decline as the country’s crisis deepened. His government was accused of introducing unsustainable tax cuts that drove up public debt and worsened the country’s economic problems. The coronavirus pandemic has also dealt a hammer blow to the island’s tourism industry and starved remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad – both key foreign exchange earners. Wickremesinghe was elected by parliament to see out the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term. It has since cracked down on street protests and arrested leading activists. The government defaulted on $51bn of external debt in April and the central bank is forecasting a record 8% contraction in GDP this year. After months of negotiations, the International Monetary Fund agreed on Thursday to a $2.9 billion conditional bailout package to restore Sri Lanka’s struggling economy.
