Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has filed a motion in the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court asking it to lift the overseas travel ban imposed on him, so that he can travel to Singapore for follow-up treatment after heart surgery.
The motion seeks the removal of the travel restriction to allow him to obtain medical treatment required after the surgery, NewsFirst reported. It says the ban was imposed by the same court “approximately four months ago” in connection with proceedings over the alleged failure of the authorities to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
Hiru News reported the same motion in Sinhala and adds two things NewsFirst does not.
First, it says the request is for the ban to be lifted temporarily — not removed outright. Second, it places Singapore on the other side of the operation: Hiru describes the treatment as follow-up care required after heart surgery that was performed in Singapore. NewsFirst presents Singapore only as the intended destination. The two accounts are compatible — surgery in Singapore, follow-up in Singapore — but only Hiru says the operation has already taken place there, and only Hiru characterises the relief sought as temporary.
The ban this motion is aimed at
Neither filing dates the order beyond “about four months ago.” This desk’s own record does, and it names the judge.
The travel ban was imposed on Wednesday 3 June 2026 by Colombo Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena, acting on a CID motion in the reopened Easter Sunday investigation, and the court directed its Registrar to forward the order to the Controller of Immigration and Emigration immediately. It was the first such restriction placed on Rajapaksa since the probe was reopened. The same order barred two military men from leaving: Army Colonel Mohamed Ansar and former intelligence officer Premananda Udalagama, alias Silva.
Two details of that June hearing bear on today’s news.
The order was made when the case involving retired Major General Suresh Sallay — the former State Intelligence Service director, named as the third suspect in the Easter investigation — was called before the bench. Sallay was produced before a separate trial-at-bar on Friday in the unrelated Prageeth Ekneligoda case.
And Magistrate Pasan Amarasena is the same judge who, on Friday morning, barred 54 people from the Presidential Secretariat as monks camped outside demanding the release of Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera. The motion now before him arrives in a week in which his court has been the venue for much of the day’s news.
Rajapaksa was Defence Secretary at the time of the April 2019 bombings, which killed more than 270 people at three churches and three hotels. He won the presidency later that year and left office in July 2022.
Not reported
Neither filing says when the motion will be taken up, whether the CID or the Attorney General has been noticed to respond, or whether the court has fixed a date. Neither gives the date of the heart surgery, the hospital, or the clinical reason follow-up abroad is said to be necessary rather than available locally. Neither reports any objection from the prosecution, and no order on the motion has been made at the time of writing.
It is also unreported whether the two military officers barred by the same June order have made, or intend to make, similar applications.
