COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country in July after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his home and office in a display of anger over the country's economic crisis, returned to the country early Saturday after seven weeks.
Rajapaksa flew into Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport around midnight Friday from Bangkok via Singapore. On being welcomed by lawmakers in his party, Rajapaksa left the airport in a motorcade heavily guarded by armed soldiers and reached a government-owned house allocated to him as a former president at the center of the capital, Colombo.
