Human rights group seeks former Sri Lankan president’s arrest in Singapore

A human rights group has filed a criminal complaint with Singapore’s attorney general to seek the arrest of Sri Lanka’s former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa for alleged war crimes.

Mr Rajapaksa, who fled to Singapore this month after he was ousted from office over Sri Lanka's economic collapse, was defence minister during the country’s civil war, which ended in 2009.

The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), an evidence-gathering organisation administered by a South Africa-based non-profit foundation, said on Sunday that its lawyers had filed the complaint requesting his immediate arrest.

The complaint alleges Mr Rajapaksa committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions during the civil war “and that these are crimes subject to domestic prosecution in Singapore under universal jurisdiction”.

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has left the nation’s 22 million people struggling with shortages of essentials, including medicine, fuel and food.

Months of protests have focused on the Rajapaksa political dynasty, which has ruled the country for most of the past two decades.

“The economic meltdown has seen the government collapse, but the crisis in Sri Lanka is really linked to structural impunity for serious international crimes going back three decades or more,” ITJP executive director Yasmin Sooka said.

The UN conservatively estimates that the civil war killed 100,000 people but the actual number is believed to be much higher.