Sri Lanka court imposes overseas travel ban on former President Gotabaya over Easter bombings probe (original) (raw)
Sri Lanka’s former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. File | Photo Credit: Reuters
A Sri Lankan court on Wednesday (June 3, 2026) banned former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from foreign travel in connection with the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 2019.
Further, the Colombo Fort Magistrate also barred two military personnel from travelling abroad, citing the probe. The attacks in April 2019 targeted three luxury hotels in Colombo and three churches in and around Colombo, and the eastern city of Batticaloa. It killed over 270 people, injured hundreds, and shook the tentative peace on the island a decade after its brutal civil war ended.
The travel ban on Mr. Gotabaya comes three months after Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department arrested former intelligence chief Major General Suresh Sallay. It is the first time that investigating authorities have sought to formally link the former president to the Easter bombings investigation, four years after he was dramatically ousted by a mass protest movement of citizens, sparked by a financial meltdown.
Mr. Gotabaya won the presidency in November 2019 with a thumping majority, after promising to strengthen national security in a country still reeling from the deadly Easter Sunday serial blasts, carried out by a network of Islamist suicide bombers. Soon after, Mr. Gotabaya appointed Mr. Sallay, a former head of military intelligence, as the chief of the State Intelligence Service.
In 2023, British broadcaster Channel 4, based on a whistleblower testimony, reported that Mr. Sallay had maintained contact with the Islamist bombers. Mr. Sallay, currently in detention, has denied the allegations. Mr. Gotabaya’s political rivals and critics have meanwhile been raising questions over the “real mastermind” behind the Easter bombings, which was initially attributed to a major lapse in national security, despite India offering prior intel about a possible attack.
The arrest of Mr. Sallay in February this year signalled a widening of the probe, with investigators looking beyond the network of suicide bombers. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was elected in 2024, has promised justice to the families of the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks.
Published - June 03, 2026 04:38 pm IST