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Sri Lanka’s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been given special security and a state bungalow for accommodation on his return in Colombo from Thailand where he fled amid months-long mass protests over the country’s worst economic crisis, officials said on Saturday.
Rajapaksa, 73, was accorded a warm welcome as he returned to Colombo from Thailand amid tight security on late Friday.
He was festooned with flowers by a welcoming party of ministers and politicians as he disembarked at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport from Bangkok via Singapore.
The former president wanted to move into his private residence at Mirihana in Colombo’s eastern suburb of Nugegoda.
However, security considerations prevented him from going to his private residence where he always lived even after becoming the president in 2019, officials said.
