Colombo: Sri Lanka’s top court on Friday barred former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa from leaving the country without permission until July 28, anti-corruption group Transparency International Sri Lanka said.
The group said in a tweet that three other former officials, including two former governors of the central bank, also cannot travel outside the country till July 28 without the court’s permission. The decision comes days after former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country amid deep economic and political crisis.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa has already left the country for Maldives and then Singapore. His departure came after months of protests against the mismanagement of the island nation’s economy, causing severe hardship to its 22 million people.
Meanwhile, parliament is set to elect a new president on Wednesday, July 20, an official said. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been sworn in as the acting President. “Gotabaya has legally resigned from yesterday,” Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abhaywardhan told reporters.
Sri Lankan protesters today handed back the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the government, which they had confiscated last Saturday. In addition to assessing the degree of damage, a forensic team was immediately called in to collect fingerprints.