Sri Lanka’s former president and credibly accused war criminal, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been hospitalised in Colombo following a medical emergency.
The former President is said to have been admitted three days ago following a medical emergency.
During the final phase of the armed conflict, Mahinda Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka's president and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as the Defence Secretary, oversaw the massacre of Tamil civilians in a brutal military campaign. Whilst figures on the number of civilians killed differ the International Truth and Justice Project has found that the highest estimate of those killed during that final phase could be as large as 169,796. During this period a litany of human rights abuses occurred including summary executions, mass rape, the indiscriminate shelling of food lines, hospitals and government-designated no-fire zones.
Following the armed conflict, journalists critical of the government would also be disappeared en-mass in white van abductions allegedly under the control of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In July of last year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced into exile following mass demonstrations against his family for bankrupting the country. Whilst in Singapore he tendered his resignation as Sri Lanka's president.
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