Battling a series of graft charges, Sri Lanka's former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa today vowed to continue his fight against President Maithripala Sirisena's government even if his "whole family" were to be jailed.
"If they think by jailing my family they can force me out of politics, they are mistaken," Rajapaksa said at a public rally at the Hyde Park here.
Since Rajapaksa's defeat in January 2015 after almost a decade in power, the former president and his family members have faced a series of corruption charges.
His second son Yoshitha Rajapaksa and younger brother Basil Rajapaksa are also facing graft charges and have been arrested by the police in the past.
Rajpaksa also exhorted the government to start work on his pet Chinese funded project of Colombo Port City and blamed the government for its inability to handle the economy.
"Please start the project, do not antagonise our friend China," Rajpaksa said.
The project was suspended by Sirisena in February 2015 -- a month after he came to power over environmental concerns.
After an year-long suspension, Lankan government had last week given the go-ahead to resume construction on the project.
Rajapaksa and his loyalists attended the rally despite his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) ruling the rally had no support from the party leadership and President Sirisena.
However, none of the speakers directly criticised Sirisena, thereby avoiding the risk of being tried for breach of party discipline.
The rally was organised to demonstrate the strength of the joint opposition group of Rajapaksa loyalists.
