A court in Sri Lanka will decide on 25 November whether to lift an overseas travel ban imposed on former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in connection with investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena set the date after considering the application at Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court on 4 November. The court did not lift the restriction at that hearing.
The magistrate observed that Rajapaksa had not been named as a suspect in the relevant case. A travel restriction is not a finding of criminal guilt, and the application to lift it remains undecided.
The Criminal Investigation Department raised concerns about the former president travelling overseas. The court also considered the question of whether his return to Sri Lanka could be secured if the restriction were lifted.
Earlier travel request
The court imposed the overseas travel ban on Rajapaksa on 3 June 2026 in connection with the investigation. Two military personnel were also barred from foreign travel at that time in connection with the probe. The restrictions did not establish that any of the three had committed an offence.
In October, Rajapaksa filed an application seeking permission to travel to Singapore for follow-up medical treatment after heart surgery. On 21 October, the magistrate’s court rejected an earlier motion seeking permission to travel for treatment because of a discrepancy in the dates in the submitted document.
At that earlier hearing, a representative of the Attorney General told the court that Rajapaksa had not been named as a suspect in the investigation. The representative said that a request to lift the restriction temporarily could be considered on humanitarian grounds.
The ruling scheduled for 25 November concerns the later request before the court. The decision has not yet been announced, and the court’s selection of a date should not be treated as an indication of the outcome.
The attacks and subsequent proceedings
The attacks took place on Easter Sunday in April 2019, when suicide bombers struck three churches and three hotels. More than 260 people were killed and hundreds were injured. The church attacks took place while worshippers were attending services; the hotels were in Colombo.
Rajapaksa was elected president in November 2019, months after the bombings. He resigned in July 2022 amid widespread protests during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis.
The travel-ban application is one part of a wider set of proceedings arising from the attacks. In a separate criminal trial in September 2026, Sri Lanka’s High Court convicted 15 men of involvement in the bombings and acquitted nine others. Those convicted received prison sentences. That trial was separate from the current application concerning Rajapaksa’s travel.
In a different case in 2023, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court found that former president Maithripala Sirisena and other officials had violated victims’ fundamental rights by failing to prevent the attacks despite detailed intelligence warnings. The court directed the officials to pay into a fund for victims.
Sri Lanka’s Office for Reparations says the fund has supported bereaved families and injured people, as well as education for children affected by the attacks. The United Nations Human Rights Office has called for a thorough and transparent investigation, with victims and their representatives able to participate.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
