Months after former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was denied a US visa following the mass protests that ousted him from power, he along with his family left for the United States via Dubai. Rajapaksa, who was a US citizen, had revoked his US citizenship in order to contest for Sri Lankan presidential polls in 2019. Rajapaksa took early retirement from the Sri Lanka Army and moved into the field of information technology, before immigrating to the United States in 1998. He returned to Sri Lanka in 2005.
According to officials at the Bandaranaike International Airport, Rajapaksa and his family left for the US via Dubai during the wee hours of December 27, multiple Colombo-based papers reported. Gotabaya was reportedly awaiting to obtain a US Green Card to return to America and settle there with his family, after having applied for the status in August 2022.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was accompanied by his wife Ayoma Rajapaksa, his son Manor Rajapaksa, his daughter-in-law, and his grandchild.
They left for the US via Dubai on an Emirates Airline flight at 2.55 am on Tuesday.
Rajapaksa’s previous attempts to flee to the US
At the peak of popular protests in Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa had sought to board a flight to Dubai on July 11 but the immigration staff did not facilitate his boarding. A CNN report claimed that the Rajapaksa family had six boarding passes for an Emirates flight that they were supposed to take had they been facilitated to board through the ‘silk route’, a fast track route for VIPs.
The silk route was then put on hold to prevent politicians from fleeing. It remains unclear if Rajapaksas fled through the silk route this time.
“The President and his wife spent the night at a military base next to the main international airport after missing four flights that could have taken them to the United Arab Emirates,” AFP had said in its report from July 2022.
Sri Lanka is currently facing an economic crisis while it waits for International Monetary Fund (IMF) to formally approve a USD 2.9 billion bailout package. IMF and Sri Lanka reached a staff-level agreement to support the economic policies of the country with a 48-month arrangement, giving the country the much-needed headroom to combat economic uncertainty. The country has also sought to trade in Indian rupees with assistance from New Delhi.
(With inputs from agencies)
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