’No place to hide’: Ousted Sri Lankan Prez Rajapaksa returns home, faces calls for arrest

Ousted Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa returned home on Saturday after fleeing the country in July under military escort. On his return, Rajapaksa was provided an official residence and security by the government and was garlanded with flowers by a welcoming party of ministers from the ruling coalition.

After meeting senior leaders, the former Sri Lankan President was taken to his official residence. Reports claimed he has not decided on his next moves yet.

Rajapaksa's return comes after his younger brother and former finance minister Basil met with President Ranil Wickremesinghe and requested protection for the ousted leader to return.

"What he told us last night was that he needs some time as he wasn’t even allowed to step out of his room due to security reasons," Reuters quoted a senior official as saying.

He further added, "Once he has spent some time at home he will let us know what he wants to do.”

Calls for bringing Gotabaya to Justice grow:

Protestors who led the agitation demanding his removal from office that eventually led to Rajapaksa fleeing the country have asked for charges to be brought against him since he no longer enjoys Presidential immunity.

"Gotabaya returned because no country is willing to accept him, he has no place to hide, He should be arrested immediately for causing such misery for the 22 million people of Sri Lanka. He should be prosecuted for his crimes." AFP quoted Joseph Stalin, the leader of a teachers' trade union that helped mobilise demonstrators as saying.

"He can't live freely as if nothing has happened," Stalin added.

"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.

The 73-year-old leader is also facing charges in a US court over prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge's murder and the torture of Tamil prisoners at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009.

Rajapaksa had fled the country in July after months of political unrest and protests demanding his removal from office. It came in the background of an unprecedented economic downturn which saw acute shortages of food, lengthy blackouts and long queues at gas stations for scarce fuel supplies after the country ran out of foreign currency to pay for vital imports.

The Sri Lankan government defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt in April and its central bank forecasts an 8 percent GDP contraction this year. 

Recently, the International Monetary Fund(IMF), after months of negotiations agreed on a conditional $2.9 billion bailout package to repair Sri Lanka's battered finances

With inputs from agencies