Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa broke his silence and issued a statement for the first since being ousted in order to respond to the allegations made by the Channel 4 program on the Easter Sunday attacks.

He said that the latest film by Channel 4 is mostly an anti-Rajapaksa tirade aimed at blackening the Rajapaksa legacy from 2005 onwards and is a tissue of lies just like the previous films broadcast by the same Channel.

He said that to claim that a group of Islamic extremists launched suicide attacks in order to make him President, is absurd.

The complete statement is as follows :