(Colombo) Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, booed by a strong popular movement, landed in the Maldives on Wednesday after leaving the country aboard a military plane.
Updated yesterday at 6:46 p.m.
The 73-year-old leader, who vowed to step down and had unsuccessfully attempted to leave the country on Tuesday, took off early Wednesday from Colombo International Airport with his wife and a bodyguard aboard an Antonov-32, immigration officials told AFP.
“Their passports were stamped and they boarded this special air force flight,” an immigration official told AFP.
An airport official in Malé, the capital of the Maldives, said at around 2230 GMT the plane had landed and the three passengers had been taken under police escort to a destination unknown at this stage.
According to Sri Lankan airport sources, the aircraft was held for over an hour on the airport tarmac awaiting clearance to land in the Maldives.
“There were moments of tension, but in the end everything ended well,” said an airport official on condition of anonymity.
The president was turned away in humiliating fashion from Colombo airport on Tuesday by immigration officials and some of his advisers considered Mr Rajapaksa and his entourage fleeing aboard a patrol vessel, a source says. highly placed in the field of defence.
A navy vessel was used to transfer the head of state from the presidential palace besieged by protesters to the port of Trincomalee in the northeast of the country on Saturday.
VIP lounge
Then, Mr. Rajapaksa joined Colombo International Airport by helicopter on Monday.
But on Tuesday, immigration officials had refused him access to the VIP lounge to have his passport stamped when the head of state wanted to avoid the terminal open to the public, fearing the reaction of the population.
Having not yet resigned, which he promised to do on Wednesday for a “peaceful transition of power”, Mr. Rajapaksa still enjoys presidential immunity.
The head of state and his wife had spent the night from Monday to Tuesday at a military base near the international airport after missing four flights that could have taken them to the United Arab Emirates.
His younger brother, Basil, who resigned as finance minister in April, also missed his flight to Dubai after a similar run-in with immigration.
He did try to use a chargeable concierge service for business travelers, but airport and immigration staff announced that the quick service would be discontinued with immediate effect.
“Some other passengers protested against Basil boarding their flight,” an airport official told AFP. “It was a tense situation, so he left the airport in a hurry.”
Cash
Basil, who also has US citizenship, was due to apply for a new passport after leaving his in the presidential palace when the Rajapaksa family fled on Saturday in the face of an onslaught of thousands of protesters, according to a diplomatic source.
In this leak, the Sri Lankan president left behind a suitcase full of documents and 17.85 million rupees (49,000 euros) in cash, now under seal.
If the Head of State resigns as promised, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will automatically be appointed interim President until Parliament elects an MP who will hold office until the end of the current term, c i.e. November 2024.
Mr. Wickremesinghe is however also challenged by the demonstrators who have been camping in front of the Presidential Secretariat for more than three months to demand the resignation of the president because of the unprecedented economic crisis that the country is going through.
Mr. Rajapaksa is accused of mismanaging the economy, leading to the country’s inability, starved of foreign exchange, to finance the most essential imports for a population of 22 million.
Colombo defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt in April and is in talks with the IMF for a possible bailout.
Sri Lanka has almost exhausted its gasoline reserves. The government has ordered the closure of non-essential offices and schools to reduce travel and save fuel.