Former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his former presidential secretary Saman Ekanayake are to be summoned by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to make statements in connection with two separate cases.
Rajapaksa is to be questioned over comments made by former Inspector General of Police Deshabandu Tennakoon regarding the failure to prevent and control the violent assault on ‘Aragalaya’ protestors at Galle Face Green in May 2022. The attack, carried out by pro-government supporters, was a turning point in the demonstrations that ultimately forced Rajapaksa to flee the country.
Ekanayake, meanwhile, is to provide a statement to investigators on matters relating to the arrest of former Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Earlier this year, credibly accused war criminal Rajapaksa informed the Supreme Court that he is willing to testify in the habeas corpus case relating to the 2011 enforced disappearance of human rights activists Lalith Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganandan - but has requested that proceedings be held in Colombo, citing “security concerns.”
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s career has been indelibly tied to both mass violence and mass protest. As Sri Lanka’s defence secretary during the final phase of the armed conflict, his tenure oversaw the massacres at Mullivaikkal in May 2009, during which tens of thousands of Tamils were killed. Atrocities committed under his watch have been increasingly recognised as genocide by rights organisations, UN experts, and Tamil political representatives.
Despite this bloody legacy, Rajapaksa was elected president in 2019, consolidating the Rajapaksa family’s dominance over Sri Lankan politics. However, his administration collapsed amid the island’s worst economic crisis in decades, sparking protests across the Sinhala south. In July 2022, Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka and resigned from abroad after demonstrators stormed the presidential palace. He later returned quietly to the island.
The decision to summon Rajapaksa over the Galle Face attacks comes as the current National Peoples Power (NPP) regime has launched a crackdown on Sri Lanka’s previous ruling elite.
