Former Sri Lanka president Gotabaya Rajapaksa quizzed by police over a property

Colombo: Former Sri Lanka president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was on Friday morning quizzed by the police’s CID over a property in the island nation’s southern Kataragama town.

The 75-year-old, younger brother of former president and prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, was questioned by police for nearly two hours and his statement was recorded by the CID after being served a notice over the property located in the pilgrimage town.

He becomes the most high-profile Rajapaksa to be questioned by police since the formation of the new government led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake in November last year.

The National People’s Power (NPP) government in the run up to the election had vowed to revive the anti-corruption cases filed between 2015 and 2019 in which the Rajapaksas had been implicated.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned as president less than three years into his five-year term on July 14, 2022, when the country erupted against his presidency over his failure to handle the economic crisis brought in by forex shortages.

Rajapaksa fled to Maldives under siege as tens of thousands surrounded his offices during early July. He sent in his resignation from Singapore a week later.