Sri Lanka's former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa hospitalised: Report

Basil Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's former finance minister and the brother of President Gotabya Rajapaksa, has been admitted to a private hospital here, according to a media report on Friday.

Basil, 71, is the youngest brother of President Rajapaksa and former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

However, it is yet known why he was hospitalized, the Daily Mirror, an online newspaper reported.

In April too, Basil Rajapaksa was admitted to a private hospital in Colombo after contracting COVID-19.

Widely regarded as the intellectual pillar of the Rajapaksa family, Basil was the finance minister of Sri Lanka until April 4 when he was sacked by President Gotabaya as the country’s economic crisis worsened.

Basil, a Sri Lankan-American, resigned from Parliament on June 9.

He was accused of being partially responsible for the economic crisis in the country.

However, Basil denied that the economic crisis was not his making and that the country should have gone to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout much earlier.

Sri Lanka, which is currently facing its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948, is trying to strike a bailout deal with the IMF.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)