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Sri Lanka’s deposed former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa returned to the country Friday, an airport official said, seven weeks after he fled amid the island’s worst-ever economic crisis.
Rajapaksa was festooned with flowers by a welcoming party of ministers and politicians as he disembarked at the main international airport, the official added – in a sign of his enduring influence in the Indian Ocean nation critics say he led to ruin.
“There was a rush of government politicians to garland him as he came out of the aircraft,” the official told AFP.
Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka under military escort in mid-July after unarmed crowds stormed his official residence, following months of angry demonstrations blaming him for the nation’s unprecedented economic crisis.
He sent in his resignation from Singapore before flying on to Thailand, from…
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