Colombo Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena has ordered that the decision on a request to lift the overseas travel ban imposed on former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa be delivered on 25 November.
The ban relates to the ongoing investigation into the Easter Sunday terror attacks, the Daily Mirror reported on Wednesday afternoon.
What the CID told the court
Making submissions before the court, the Criminal Investigation Department said there were concerns as to whether Rajapaksa would return to Sri Lanka after travelling overseas.
The CID did not, however, oppose the application outright. It informed the court that it would not object to the ban being lifted if proper legal measures were in place to ensure his return to the country after travelling abroad. In the absence of such measures, it said, it would oppose his overseas travel.
The difficulty the Magistrate identified
The Magistrate then made an observation that goes to the heart of the application: because the former President has not been named as a suspect in the case, the court had no authority to issue an order securing his return to Sri Lanka if the travel ban were lifted.
That leaves the two positions before the court in tension. The CID’s non-objection is conditional on guarantees of return, while the court’s stated view is that it lacks the power to impose such guarantees on someone who is not a suspect. The ruling due on 25 November will have to resolve that question.
Context
The travel ban was imposed by the same court earlier this year in connection with the Easter Sunday investigation, which concerns the April 2019 suicide bombings of churches and hotels that killed more than 260 people. Rajapaksa was elected President in November 2019, months after the attacks, and left office in July 2022.
Not reported
The report does not say who made the application to lift the ban, whether Rajapaksa has stated a destination or reason for travelling, or what form of “proper legal measures” the CID would regard as sufficient. It does not record any submission by the former President’s counsel, and does not say whether other individuals subject to travel restrictions in the same investigation are affected by the application.
This desk checked Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, EconomyNext, Hiru, Daily FT and Island for independent coverage of Wednesday’s proceedings; no other verified newsroom had filed on the hearing at the time of writing. Searches on this story also return reporting on the original imposition of the ban earlier in 2026 and an unrelated, much older item headlined “Travel ban on Gota lifted”, neither of which describes Wednesday’s hearing.