Sri Lanka’s ex-president likely to return after fleeing mass protests

Bloomberg

Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to return home from Singapore where he has been staying for nearly two weeks after fleeing violent protests in the South Asian country where citizens called for his ouster.
Rajapaksa has been the focus of protesters who blame him for a series of missteps that led to an economic meltdown with dwindling foreign-exchange reserves and soaring inflation. He resigned on July 15 after arriving in Singapore and his ally Ranil Wickremesinghe was voted in by lawmakers as the new president last week.
“To my knowledge he is expected to come back,” cabinet spokesman Bandula Gunawardena told reporters on Tuesday. He added that he wasn’t aware of when the former president was returning but emphasized Rajapaksa was not in hiding and neither was he in exile.