Sri Lankan president's resignation accepted

The resignation of Sri Lanka's president has been accepted, the crisis-hit country's parliamentary speaker announced Friday, after he fled the country earlier this week, prompting relief among protesters camped outside his former offices, reports AFP.

The formal declaration makes Gotabaya Rajapaksa -- once known as "The Terminator" for his ruthless crushing of the Tamil rebellion -- the first Sri Lankan head of state to resign since it adopted an executive presidency in 1978.

He emailed in his notice from Singapore after flying to the city-state from the Maldives, where he initially escaped after demonstrators overran his palace at the weekend.

"The president has officially resigned from his position," speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana told reporters.

Outside the presidential secretariat, at the makeshift headquarters of a months-long protest movement against Rajapaksa, Catholic priest Jeevantha Peiris told AFP: "This is a historical moment for all Sri Lankans.

"We were assaulted, put in prisons, put on travel bans, some of our friends laid their lives down. With all these hardships we have come through," the 45-year-old said. "We have no fear anymore."

The former president, he added, was a "bloodthirsty criminal" who should return to Sri Lanka to face justice.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as acting president -- his accession was automatic under Sri Lanka's constitution -- but many of the demonstrators see him as complicit in the rule of the Rajapaksas and also want him to go.

Parliament will meet on Wednesday to elect an MP to succeed Rajapaksa for the rest of his term, the speaker's office said, with nominations due the previous day.