Colombo: There is a growing demand in the Island Country to arrest former Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who returned home Saturday from Thailand.
Rajapaksa, 73, returned to Katunayake International Airport on Singapore Airlines SQ-468 flight. Some Ministers of the present government and politicians from his party, Sri Lankan Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), welcomed him inside the airport.
However, demand is growing to arrest and prosecute Gotabaya Rajapaksa for what critics call his “crimes” against the people of Sri Lanka.
“Gotabaya returned because no country is willing to accept him, he has no place to hide,” Joseph Stalin, the leader of a teachers’ trade union that helped mobilise demonstrators, told AFP.
“He should be arrested immediately for causing such misery for the 22 million people of Sri Lanka. He should be prosecuted for his crimes", he added.
On July 13, Gotabaya fled to the Maldives in a Sri Lanka Air Force jet and from there to Singapore from where he announced his resignation.
On a request made by Sri Lanka government led by new President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Gotabaya was given a 90-day visa by the Thailand government.
Rajapaksa was blamed for the economic crisis the country was going through and the angry protestors took to streets on March 31 and surrounded the former President's private residence outside the state capital Colombo.
For more than three months, people carried out street fights demanding the resignation of Gotabaya, his elder brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and the entire government.
Mahinda and his cabinet were forced to resign on May 9 and on July 9, Gotabaya fled his official residence when the protesters stormed it.
Going through the worst economic crisis in the post-independence Sri Lanka, on Thursday the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced a financial bailout under strict conditions, including political stability, tax reforms, action on corruption and negations with the multiple creditors.
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