COLOMBO: A Sri Lan­kan court imposed a foreign travel ban on former president Gotabaya Raja­p­a­ksa on Wednesday as inv­estigators widened the­ir probe into the deadly 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.

Rajapaksa’s then-intelligence chief, Suresh Sallay, has been detained since February after being accused of orchestrating the attacks which killed 279 people — an allegation he denies.

The Colombo Fort Magistrate ordered immigration authorities to prevent Rajapaksa and two other military intelligence officers from leaving the country. “Should these three individuals travel abroad, it would be an obstacle to continuing investigations,” detectives told the magistrate.

The CID stopped short of naming Rajapaksa as a suspect, but it is the first time he has been directly linked to the case as a “person of interest”.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2026