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Sri Lanka’s ousted president returns home after fleeing
Sri Lanka's ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa returned home in the early hours of Saturday (Sep 3) after fleeing the country in July, fleeing tens of thousands of protesters stormed his home and office in a display of anger over the country’s economic crisis, a senior security official said.
On July 13, the ousted leader, his wife and two bodyguards left aboard an air force plane for the Maldives, before traveling to Singapore from where he officially resigned. He flew to Thailand two weeks later.
Rajapaksa has no court case or arrest warrant pending against him, the Associated Press reported.
The only court case he was facing for alleged corruption during his time as the secretary to the ministry of defense under his older brother’s presidency was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019 because of constitutional immunity.
UN: Children ‘going to bed hungry’ in bankrupt Sri Lanka
For months, Sri Lanka has been in the grips of its worst economic crisis, which triggered extraordinary protests and unprecedented public rage that ultimately forced Rajapaksa and his brother, the former prime minister, to step down.
The situation in the bankrupt country was made worse by global factors like the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but many hold the once-powerful Rajapaksa family as responsible for severely mismanaging the economy and tipping it into crisis.
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