Singapore grants further 14-day stay for former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa
Singapore has granted another stay of 14 days to Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the city state’s Straits Times newspaper said today (July 27).
A short-term visit pass issued when Gotabaya Rajapaksa arrived on a private visit two weeks ago has been extended by 14 days, the paper said.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka on July 13 after massive street protests, arriving in Singapore via the Maldives on July 14. When he arrived in Singapore, he was still President of Sri Lanka, resigning via email on July 15.
He has since been replaced as president by his former Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the former president had been granted permission to enter on a private visit, and that he had neither asked for nor had been granted asylum.
In an earlier report by The Straits Times, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore had confirmed that Rajapaksa had been granted a 14-day short term visit pass (STVP), and that visitors from Sri Lanka are generally issued 30 day STVPs.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa has now had that STVP extended by an additional 14 days.
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Dear Sir,
You look miserable in the photo.
Sir, the Nation loves you and will give a red carpet welcome when you return.
Don’t be upset over what the IUSF/FSP drug laden, pretend Aragalayists did to Ioma and you.
SL government better get GR back in the country within the next hour if possible. Further 14 days can well be an extension before being apprehended using Sooka’s fictitious appeal to arrest for for crimes, she herself seems to know will be thrown out of the Intranational Criminal Court, if she goes there. Yesterday’s meeting with RW must be to force the government to bend backward and ‘do as I say’ if GR not to be apprehended by the Singaporeans. We know without any doubt whose pocket they are in. Get Gotha home ASAP. With any war crime evidence he is responsible for, Sooka can go the ICC, if those are credible.
Agree. We need to provide protection to this man from harm by external forces, from forces who are only interested in their own insidious agenda and not about Sri Lanka or Sri Lankan’s welfare. I am also not a lock-stock-barrel fan of Rajapakses (for their incompetence at best and worse possibly, but I’ll leave it at that until evidence is proven about other allegations), but we cannot let this man who led us to freedom from horrific LTTE terrorism be sacrificed at the alter of fabricated “war crimes” by the same LTTE diaspora. If at all, I think it is high time this LTTE diaspora honchos were also roped-in for war crimes prosecution for what the LTTE terrorists did in Sri Lanka for over 27 years as they are responsible for funding it. Of course, the US, UK and Canadian, etc. govts have had few prosecutions/cases/details about this matter brought up over the past decades, so this is not a secret. Only a few cases resulted in guilty persons being jailed for very cursory jail terms, but largely most got off scott free. Therefore, if it is time for “war crimes in Sri Lanka” prosecutions, then I say it is time also again to go after those LTTE operatives abroad for “war crimes” as funding terrorism from shadows is as bad as the one who blows up a bus full of civilians.
I am not a fan of your corrupt and incompetent ‘clan’ but I have always admired you for eradicating our nation of horrific LTTE terrorism in 2009 and on that account alone, I still hold deep gratitude to you. Yes, you must come back as it is your right. Under the constitution, you as a citizen of Sri Lanka cannot be dictated to, by whoever (least of all by drug addicts, arsonist, hooligans, etc.) to stay in exile in another land. Besides, as a former Prez, you are entitled to certain privileges and protections and no one can deny you of them . If incompetent Sirisena Gamarala is entitled to such (despite ruining the country by allowing Islamist terrorism to flourish and see them unleash huge carnages with multiple bombs all over SL in one day, an event that virtually brought tourism and foreign investment down to zero overnight), then I think you are twice more entitled to such.