Sri Lanka court imposes overseas travel ban on former President Gotabaya over Easter bombings probe

Key points

• A Sri Lankan court on Wednesday (June 3, 2026) banned former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from foreign travel in connection with the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 2019. Further, the Colombo Fort Magistrate also barred two military personnel from travelling abroad, citing the probe.
• The attacks in April 2019 targeted three luxury hotels in Colombo and three churches in and around Colombo, and the eastern city of Batticaloa.
• It killed over 270 people, injured hundreds, and shook the tentative peace on the island a decade after its brutal civil war ended.
• The travel ban on Mr. Gotabaya comes three months after Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department arrested former intelligence chief Major General Suresh Sallay.
• It is the first time that investigating authorities have sought to formally link the former president to the Easter bombings investigation, four years after he was dramatically ousted by a mass protest movement...