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Incidents involving the LTTE outside Sri Lanka

In the recent past, there have been many instances in which cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or their front organizations have been arrested or sentenced to prison for a variety of subversive activity across the world. Some of the major incidents involving the LTTE outside Sri Lanka include:

2012

December 27: Two men extradited to US from Canada on charges of supporting LTTE, that has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US were ordered to be held without bond during an appearance in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

November 23: A local court in Chennai, Tamil Nadu closed a criminal charge filed against slain LTTE chief Prabhakaran, pending before it for many years. The VII Additional Sessions Judge (In charge) Kaliamoorthy declared the charge as "abated," following the Crime Branch-CID request to close it on the ground that Prabhakaran's body was recovered from the Nandikadal area of Sri Lanka in 2009.

November 13: Two Sri Lankan men were charged with the murder of Parithy, a former commander of Sri Lanka's LTTE in Paris. The two suspects, both born in Sri Lanka in 1979, were arrested on November 11 and are being held in custody in Paris. One of them is suspected of ordering the murder and the other of carrying out the hit on the Sri Lankan-born French national. They have been charged with murder and immigration offences.

November 8: A prominent LTTE leader and leader of the Pro-LTTE TCC Nadarajah Matheenthiran alias Parithy was killed in Paris, France, as a result of internal rift. Police said that Parithy belonged to LTTE's Nediyawan faction. Since the death of Prabhakaran, an internal rift occurred between LTTE Europe Leader Nediyawan and V. Rudrakumaran who was also a prominent LTTE leader based in USA.

October 28: An Australian report said that former LTTE combatants wanted for their crimes in Sri Lanka are being funded to migrate to Australia as asylum seekers by the former members of the terrorist group already migrated to Australia. The report said that six former combatants posed as asylum seekers were arrested leaving Sri Lanka this year, with another six people who were apprehended as alleged smugglers.

June 17: Belgium Government said that it would continue to remain vigilant against any activities by the LTTE on its soil.

June 11: Swiss prosecutors have planned to interview the head of finance of the LTTE who is imprisoned in Netherland. They have also planned to question some 25 senior ranks LTTE members; some of whom are currently imprisoned in Sri Lanka. They are investigating into suspected money laundering by 12 members of the Swiss LTTE to the Netherlands and Sri Lanka. The prosecutor office suspects that the Tamils used fake pay slips of Sri Lankans resident in Switzerland to obtain loans of $73,000 - $104,000.

June 6: Swiss Director of Prosecutions revealed that the LTTE had taken fraudulently substantial funds as loans from financial institutions on the basis of false documents, reports Lank Web. It was also revealed that these funds were channeled to LTTE for purchase of arms through S. Ramachandran, a leader in the LTTE overseas front.

June 4: British Sri Lankans in London held a Peaceful demonstration against violent methods adopted by the LTTE rump in UK.

May 11: United States federal judge in New York sentenced a top Tamil Tiger, who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, to time served in jail and freed the man. The defendant, Karunakaran Kandasamy (55), had pled guilty to among others, a charge of conspiring to provide material support to LTTE.

April 30: The United States Department of Justice seeks a 15-year prison sentence for a Canadian Tamil man who pleaded guilty in a United States district court to charges of conspiring to provide material support to the LTTE, a proscribed organization in the US. Mylvaganam, a Canadian citizen who previously lived in the US, was arrested by Canada's RCMP officers in Toronto and extradited to US in 2009, following his indictment in the Eastern District Court of New York. He pleaded guilty on February 8, 2012 to conspiring to procure sophisticated technology, including submarine design software and night vision equipment for the LTTE in 2006. Mylvaganam faces a maximum term of 15 years'' imprisonment.

March 10: Sri Lanka's ambassador to Germany, Sarath Kongahage, said that the LTTE and its sympathisers are fast fading in Germany. Several attempts made by them to raise funds by holding campaigns have failed. The Sri Lankan community in Germany is around 60,000, of which around 8,000 are Tamils.

March 9: Media spokesperson for Sri Lankan Australians in Melbourne, Nagesha Wickramasuriya said that separatist activists and LTTE supporters are attempting to lobby support from federal Parliamentarians in Australia into making a statement and to pressurize the UNHRC to take action against Sri Lanka.

March 8: Activists of various pro-LTTE movements disrupted an international conference and forced the organisers to send away a Sri Lankan academic. The members of Naam Tamizhar Iyakkam May 17 Movement, Sri Lankan Tamils Protection Federation, as well as MDMK cadres barged into the conference venue at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (MSU) in Tamil Nadu and protested against the participation of Jeeva Niriella, faculty of law, lecturer, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. This is the second such incident of a Sri Lankan visitor facing a protest by pro-Tamil outfits. In January this year, Thirukumaran Nadesan, husband of Nirupama Rajapaksa, niece of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa's suffered an even harsher treatment when slippers were hurled at him in Rameswaram where he visited to offer prayers in the temple.

January 16: A suspected sympathizer of the LTTE was arrested by Kochi city Police from Chengalpettu in Chennai in connection with a human trafficking case involving Sri Lankan Tamils.

January 15: The US granted President Mahinda Rajapaksa immunity from a law suit filed in a US court against him by the pro- LTTE Tamil Diaspora. The US filed a "Suggestion of Immunity" at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on January 13 for President Rajapaksa recognizing him as the "sitting head of state of a foreign state."

The External Affairs Ministry has directed the country's missions in Europe to keep a close watch on the activities of LTTE front organizations in their respective countries.

January 3: French Ambassador confirmed the publication of 360 stamps by La Poste. However, after the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed La Poste that LTTE is a terrorist group banned by the EU in 2006, the mail service has assured that no such stamps will be printed further.

Peiris urged the French Government to ensure that publications like the four stamps issued by La Poste of France, depicting images related to the LTTE, including its insignia, should not happen and their publication be cancelled.

2011

October 21: A Dutch court convicted and sentenced five Dutch citizens of Sri Lankan Tamil origin accused of extorting money from other Dutch Tamils to fund the terrorist activities of Sri Lanka's terror outfit LTTE.

September 30: Sri Lankan-born American hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, who was found guilty on all counts in the high-profile insider trading trial and awaiting sentencing in the United States, also financed the Tamil militant outfit LTTE, in its decades-long war of the Sri Lankan Government.

September 28: Dutch prosecutors trying five Sri Lankan Tamil nationals, (who are all naturalized Dutch citizens now) accused of extorting money from other Dutch Tamils in the Netherlands are seeking long prison terms. The prosecutors have demanded sentences ranging from 10 to 16 years for the five ethnic Tamils accused of organizing illegal lotteries and extorting cash from Tamils in the Netherlands with all proceeds going to Sri Lanka's militant outfit LTTE, to finance its terrorist war.

Nine persons who were arrested in Kerala in India on September 26 on the charge of cheating 34 Sri Lankans at refugee camps in Tamil Nadu are suspected by the Police to have links with the LTTE.

September 27: Senior American counter-terrorism official warned Canadian authorities that two Sri Lankan migrants who arrived off the British Columbia Coast in 2009 aboard a smuggling ship were suspected cadres of the militant outfit LTTE.

September 17: A domestic Dutch criminal court, trying five Sri Lankan Tamils for supporting Sri Lanka's defeated Tamil Tiger terrorist outfit LTTE, will screen Britain's Channel 4 documentary "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields" on a request made by the defence counsel.

August 27: Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the European Union (EU) Ravinatha Aryasinha said that the EU was yet to respond to a request from Sri Lanka on listing LTTE front organizations in Europe as terrorist entities.

August 23: Professor Rohan Gunaratne, a specialist in terrorism research while addressing the fifth annual symposium of the Sir John Kotalawela Defence University said that despite LTTE being wiped out in Sri Lanka, their international presence still posed a threat to the country.

August 18: The overseas cadres of LTTE continued to procure weapons while the LTTE Diaspora continued to support the organization financially, a report released by the (US) Department of State said. It said that despite its military defeat in Sri Lanka at the hands of Government Forces in May 2009, the LTTE's international network of financial support persists.

August 1: The Sri Lankan Government updated a request to the EU to list front organizations of the LTTE as terrorist entities.

July 27: Radio Netherlands claimed that Rehabilitated (LTTE) cadres are ready to fight again if life doesn't improve. A (RNW) team who visited Sri Lanka recently interviewed a group of nine rehabilitated combatants, six men and three women, in a walled-compound of an unnamed NGO in the Eastern city of Batticaloa. The group complained to the RNW team about lack of freedom referring to many military checkpoints they have to go through in the North. The ex-fighters told that they have to sign a monthly 'good behavior report' and the Police are suspicious of them.

July 21: Minister of Human Resources D.E.W. Gunasekera said that international groups looked at the situation in the country from the viewpoint of the LTTE. He said that since the international groups view the situation in Sri Lanka like the LTTE, their viewpoints would be different from the real situation.

June 16: In the wake of a documentary aired by Britain's Channel 4 on Sri Lanka's war, the United Nations renewed its call for Sri Lanka to investigate the alleged violations of human rights during the last phase of the three-decade long conflict with the LTTE militants.

June 15: Following the broadcasting of a documentary on Sri Lanka's war with the LTTE militants by the Channel 4 TV, the United Kingdom pressed Sri Lanka to investigate the alleged war crimes or face an international inquiry.

A team of Dutch officials investigating the financial network of the LTTE leaders in the Netherlands arrived in Sri Lanka to interrogate former and current LTTE leaders in the country.

May 25: Dutch authorities investigating the financial network of the LTTE leaders in the Netherlands plan to interrogate former and current LTTE leaders in Sri Lanka and are in the process of seeking permission from the Sri Lankan authorities.

May 21: A Norway-based leader of the LTTE, Perinpanayagam Sivaparan alias Nediyawan, was arrested by the Netherlands Police and produced in a court in Oslo in Norway.

April 7: Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) asked the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) to deport a Sri Lankan Tamil migrant for his role in the human smuggling operation that brought hundreds of Tamil refugees to Canada aboard the Thai cargo ship MV Sun Sea in August 2010.

March 17: Canadian authorities ordered the deportation of a Sri Lankan Tamil migrant who had entered Vancouver in August 2010 aboard the Thai ship MV Sun Sea on the charge of being member of the militant outfit LTTE.

February 25: The Canadian Government is mulling over the confiscation of all LTTE banking and fund raising activities in Canada. Minister for External Affairs G. L. Peiris said that Canada was already in the process of crafting the necessary legislation. The Minister said that Jason Kenny, a Canadian Minister had taken the lead in this respect.

February 13: Central intelligence agencies communicated specific inputs to the Tamil Nadu Police that suspected LTTE cadres are conspiring to carry out attacks on VVIPs (very very important persons) during forthcoming Assembly elections in the State.

2010

December 7: Thai Police arrested 50 illegal Sri Lankan immigrants in Bangkok. Suspected members of the LTTE were believed to be among the arrestees.

October 18: A federal jury in Baltimore has convicted a Singapore national of conspiring to provide weapons to the LTTE operating in Sri Lanka, the US Justice Department said on October 18, reports Daily News. Balraj Naidu (48) was charged in a conspiracy to provide material support to the LTTE designated in 1997 by the US Department of State as a foreign terrorist organization. According to evidence presented at his trial, Naidu and four co-conspirators arranged to buy some 28 tons of US-made weapons and ammunition from an undercover business in Maryland. The LTTE representatives made a $250,000 down-payment on the $900,000 weapons deal with the bogus company in the summer of 2006, the Justice Department said. Naidu’s partners were arrested in September 2006, after inspecting the weapons that had been delivered to Guam and making another payment of $450,000 to the undercover business, the Justice Department said. Naidu was arrested after a further investigation, it said. US officials said the group also had tried to buy weapons from China, Thailand, North Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia for the LTTE to be used against Sri Lankan government forces. Naidu faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The co-conspirators, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, 40, of Sri Lanka Haji Subandi, 73, and retired Indonesian Marine Corps General Erick Wotulo, 62, both Indonesians and Haniffa Bin Osman, 59, of Singapore, all pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 57 months, 37 months, 30 months and 37 months in prison, respectively. The US designation as a foreign terrorist organization barred the group from legally raising money or buying operational equipment in the US.

October 10: The Thai immigration officials with the aid of the Crime Suppression Division of Thai Police raided several apartments in Bangkok and arrested 155 illegal Sri Lankan immigrants. According to Thai media reports the Government suspected the illegal Tamil immigrants to be a part of a group seeking to travel to Canada as refugees. Many of the migrants were without travel documents or valid visas. Also, Intelligence information revealed that a number of LTTE) militants were among the Sri Lankan illegal immigrants living in Thailand waiting to seek asylum in a third country, mainly Canada.

October 8: Canadian authorities are searching for evidence of a possible second ship suspected of smuggling Sri Lankan Tamil migrants to Canada. Canada's public safety officers are using satellites and hi-tech eaves dropping equipment to locate and pick up signals from the suspected vessel to determine whether the ship is smuggling migrants from Sri Lanka. An investigative report in August revealed that an alleged LTTE human-smuggling ring is preparing to smuggle another shipload of Tamils who have left Sri Lanka to be sent to Canada.

August 30: An investigative report by Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail revealed that an alleged LTTE human-smuggling ring is preparing to smuggle another shipload of Tamils who have left Sri Lanka to be sent to Canada. The report says the Tamils arrive in Bangkok from Sri Lanka on two-week tourist visas and stay in rented apartments pretending to be tourists until the next ship is ready to sail to Canada. The report citing the Thai Police said some of the refugees left on MV Sun Sea, the cargo ship that reached Vancouver earlier this month with 492 Tamil asylum seekers on board, were recent arrivals, who entered the country on tourist visas shortly before the ship departed in April.

August 17: The Canadian Government said that authorities would screen each individual Sri Lankan Tamil migrant who embarked on Canadian shores on August 13 from the Thai cargo ship MV Sun Sea. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that the Federal Government will not hesitate to strengthen Canada's human smuggling laws. According to the Canada Border Services all 380 men and 63 women are detained while the 49 children on board MV Sun Sea are either with their families or in the care of local social services. Public Safety Minister Victor Toews said that each migrant had paid 40,000 to 50,000 Canadian dollars to the ship operators to bring them to Canada from Thailand. He has described the voyage as a human smuggling operation run by the overseas cadres of LTTE. Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has commended Canada for its reception given to the 492 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees arrived in British Columbia's Vancouver Island aboard the Thai cargo ship MV Sun Sea.

August 17: The Canadian Government said that authorities would screen each individual Sri Lankan Tamil migrant who embarked on Canadian shores on August 13 from the Thai cargo ship MV Sun Sea. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that the Federal Government will not hesitate to strengthen Canada's human smuggling laws. According to the Canada Border Services all 380 men and 63 women are detained while the 49 children on board MV Sun Sea are either with their families or in the care of local social services. Public Safety Minister Victor Toews said that each migrant had paid 40,000 to 50,000 Canadian dollars to the ship operators to bring them to Canada from Thailand. He has described the voyage as a human smuggling operation run by the overseas cadres of LTTE. Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has commended Canada for its reception given to the 492 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees arrived in British Columbia's Vancouver Island aboard the Thai cargo ship MV Sun Sea.

August 13: Hundreds of Tamils seeking asylum from Sri Lanka sailed into Canada under escort of authorities, who vowed to screen out LTTE cadres. After several months on sea, the MV Sun Sea cargo ship arrived on western Canada's Vancouver Island surrounded by a naval frigate and Police helicopters. The ship's progress has been monitored for weeks, triggering a furore in Canada over whether the boat migrants were jumping the queue while thousands of other applicants await their turn. Public Security Minister Vic Toews repeatedly vowed that Canada, known for some of the world's most welcoming asylum policies, would not be a "soft target" for human smugglers. Mr. Toews told reporters T that some people aboard the ship were "suspected human smugglers and terrorists" and Canada would prosecute anyone involved in human trafficking, which he called a "despicable crime". The ship had originally intended to go to Australia before being deterred and heading to Canada. Canadian Tamils have urged their adopted country to accept the asylum seekers, saying that the minority group faces continued difficulties in Sri Lanka. However, the Sri Lankan Government has called for the ship to be turned away, calling it a smuggling operation by the LTTE.

August 11: Canada expressed concern that a Thai ship MV Sun Sea heading to British Columbia with migrants on board may be carrying cadres of LTTE. Canada's Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said that Ottawa is concerned over the possibility that there may be Tamil Tigers on board the Thai cargo ship and the authorities are closely monitoring the situation but did not elaborate on the steps the Government would take.

August 9: Canada expressed concern that a Thai ship MV Sun Sea heading to British Columbia with migrants on board may be carrying cadres of LTTE. Canada's Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said that Ottawa is concerned over the possibility that there may be Tamil Tigers on board the Thai cargo ship and the authorities are closely monitoring the situation but did not elaborate on the steps the Government would take.

August 4: U.S. Homeland Security is monitoring the Sri Lankan Tamil migrant ship heading to Canada. According to reports of Sri Lankan media there are many cadres of LTTE aboard the Thai ship MV Sun Sea. Meanwhile Canadian authorities said on August 1 that they are preparing to handle any situation that may be arising from the arrival of the migrant ship carrying Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Vancouver Island some time in the second week of August.

July 23: Colombo is also pursuing several Governments to dismantle three broad groups that are now assumed to be controlling the remaining pro-LTTE international factions: the US group is said to be headed by V. Rudrakumaran, the UK group by Aruththanthai Emmanuel of the World Tamil Forum (WTF) and the Norway group by Nediyavan. Recently, at least eight persons in the Netherlands and five in Germany were arrested by the respective government agencies on suspicion of having links with the LTTE. The Sri Lanka is also using diplomatic channels to stall pro-LTTE activities and dismantle arms smuggling network in the African country of Eritrea.

July 18: The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced that it has revoked the charitable registration of Ottawa-area charity, Tamil (Sri Lanka) Refugee-Aid Society (TRAS) effective from July 17. The agency has issued a notice in June of its intention to revoke the charitable registration of the Society saying that on the basis of an audit conducted, it has concluded that the Society has ceased to comply with the requirements of the Income Tax Act for its continued registration. The CRA stated that in that the charity failed to maintain adequate control and direction over the use of its funds improperly issued tax receipts on behalf of third parties and provided funding to non-qualified donees outside Canada. According to the findings, the Tamil charity has provided funds including $713,000 to an organization, which the CRA believes was operating as part of the support network for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a listed entity under the United Nations Suppression of Terrorism Regulations and the Criminal Code of Canada. The CRA said its audit also indicated that fundraising conducted under the Society's auspices involved an individual who has been convicted in the United States of conspiring to provide material support to the LTTE. In addition, the Society's liaison officer for Sri Lanka was named in documents filed with the Federal Court of Canada as a contact for area sales coordinators with the World Tamil Movement, also a listed entity under the Criminal Code of Canada because of its ties to the LTTE.

However, Germany has arrested five LTTE suspects and the Netherlands has rounded up eight LTTE so far in 2010.

July 16: Canadian Immigration Officials are monitoring a ship that may be headed to British Columbia in Canada. The ship is carrying 200 Tamil migrants. Some of them are suspected to be Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres. The ship was last spotted in May 2010 in the Gulf of Thailand.

July 14: As many as half of Sri Lankans seeking asylum in Australia are suspected of being former fighters, operatives or supporters of LTTE. Sri Lankan officials also estimate that between 25 and 50 per cent of Tamils fleeing to Australia have connections to the LTTE.

Sri Lankan defence analyst De Silva Ranasinghe says former LTTE cadres are attracted to Australia because the LTTE remains legal here, unlike in the US, Canada, Britain and 27 EU member countries, where it is proscribed as a terrorist organisation. He further said that LTTE supporters in Australia act as fundraisers for the group. In March 2010, three Tamil Australians in Melbourne pleaded guilty to sending more than AUD 1 million and AUD 97,000 worth of electronic components capable of being made into bomb detonators to the LTTE.

FBI said the LTTE uses its supporters in countries such as the US to raise funds and buy weapons and explosives.

July 11: A Sri Lankan national, Chandrayoga, was detained at the Airport of Chennai. He allegedly has links with the LTTE. His entry into India was banned and a lookout circular was pending against him. Chandrayoga arrived at Chennai from Colombo.

June 20: Three suspected operatives of the LTTE were arrested and a cache of detonators was seized from their possession, four days after a member of the banned outfit was arrested by the Police. The trio was arrested by the Tamil Nadu ''Q'' branch during a raid at Tiruchirapalli. 4,900 ordinary detonators and 430 electric detonators were recovered from them, an official release said in Chennai. Siva, Selvam, Tamiz stayed illegally in Chennai, Erode and Tiruchirapalli, respectively, without registering themselves as Sri Lankan Tamils, it said, adding that strict vigil along the coastal areas prevented them from smuggling the detonators to Sri Lanka. Investigations revealed that the trio did not have any plans to carry out terror acts in India, the release said.

38-year-old Chiranjeevi, a member of the intelligence wing of LTTE who was arrested on June 16, had confessed to having smuggled explosives along with Siva, Selvam, Tamiz, during the war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Army, Police claimed. The arrested were, however, not involved in the recent track blast near Peranai Railway Station, where passengers of the Tiruchi-Chennai Egmore Rockfort Express had a narrow escape, the release stated.

Jun 12: Passengers of the Tiruchirapalli-Chennai Rockfort Express had a narrow escape when suspected pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) elements blasted railway tracks at Perani Railway Station in Villupuram District in the wee hours. About three feet of tracks were blown off in the explosion when the train was coming towards the station at around 2:10 am (IST). The station master cautioned the driver of the train, who applied emergency brakes averting a major train disaster, Police and Railway sources said. Leaflets condemning the visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa were recovered from the site, Police said.

June 4: Two pro- LTTE activists were arrested in Paris following the death of Ramesh Sivarupan who is believed to be a member of the Ruthrakumar faction of the LTTE, according to informed sources, reports Sunday Observer. The sources said that Ramesh Sivarupan was reportedly kidnapped and taken in a van from his residence in Paris and was found near his house after few days with injuries. He succumbed to injuries at a hospital in Paris on June 3. Thambiah Ganesh and Kuppilan Ravi, believed to be members of the Nediyavan group of the pro-LTTE faction have been taken into custody by the Police in Paris in connection with the death of Sivarupan, sources said.

A week before, the Nediyavan faction set ablaze thousands of copies of Thainilam, a newspaper in Paris printed by its rival Ruthrakumar faction. The rivalry between the two factions had spread to several parts of Europe with the members of each faction looking for each other, the sources said. According to sources, the conflict between the two factions sparked off following the annihilation of the LTTE in Sri Lanka in 2009. The two factions are demanding that the assets held by the LTTE abroad should be shared, apart from their new ideologies, informed sources said. V. Ruthrakumar, a lawyer by profession domiciled in the United States is the ‘architect’ behind the setting up of the so-called ‘TGTE’ of his faction.

May 17: LTTE leader Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran has disclosed in a press statement that the controversial Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) will be holding its inaugural sessions in the city of Philadelphia in the United States for three days. Rudrakumaran has reportedly announced the meeting in an e-mail statement that had been circulated to e-mail addresses of several Sri Lankan newspapers. "We are very pleased to announce that the historic event of inaugural sessions of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) are to take place at the National Constitution Centre (NCC) at the Independence Mall in the US city of Philadelphia on May, 17-19, 2010. NCC commemorates the 1787 Philadelphia Convention when the first steps were taken to write the constitution of America. The Declaration of Independence was also debated and signed in Philadelphia," the communiqué said. According to Rudrakumaran, May 17-19 was chosen for the inauguration of TGTE in order to demonstrate the will of Eelam Tamil nation for its independence and coincides with the first year remembrance of the military victory against the LTTE. "By forming the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) through a self organised democratic practice for electing people representatives by direct voting, Eelam Tamil nation declares to the Government of Sri Lanka and the International Community that it will continue its struggle until conditions are created which will enable the Tamils to realize their right to self determination and exercise their sovereignty," Rudrakumaran has added. Be that as it may, the meeting is being held in the US where the LTTE is listed as a terrorist outfit. The Sri Lankan Government meanwhile has also urged foreign Governments not to support moves by the LTTE to create a Government in exile in support of a Tamil Eelam.

May 11: In the first case of its kind in Canada under its terrorism laws, a Sri Lankan Tamil has pleaded guilty to raising funds for the banned LTTE. Appearing in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, Toronto-based Prapaharan Thambithurai admitted raising money for the LTTE in 2008. Vancouver is the major city of British Columbia - the western-most province of Canada - with a huge concentration of the South Asian community. The 46-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil, who came to Canada as a refugee in 1988, was arrested in 2008 for illegally raising funds for the LTTE. The LTTE was banned along with many other terror outfits by Canada in 2006 after the new Conservative Government took over. He was arrested while seeking donations for the World Tamil Movement for relief work in Sri Lanka. But Canadian intelligence agencies found that the body was a front organization for the banned LTTE. Pleading guilty, the Sri Lankan Tamil admitted that half of the money raised for humanitarian aid went to the LTTE.

April 27: Seven suspected LTTE cadres have been arrested in The Netherlands. The Sri Lankan Ambassador to Holland Grace Asirvathan provided the information. As per the BBC, the arrests came after an intensive study of the LTTE banned activities in the country. It quoted The Netherlands National Criminal office as saying 16 residences and businesses were searched in the operation and computers, paperwork, phones, documents, photos, DVDs and 40,000 Euro were seized. "Among the suspects are the leaders of various organisations of Tamils in the Netherlands, which probably play a role in the international network of the LTTE," it quoted the Justice Ministry as saying. Leaders of the Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC), the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO), the Tamil Women Organisation (TWO) and the Tamil Arts and Cultural Organization Netherlands (TKCO), are believed to be among the suspects.

April 12: Indian Express reports that on May 18, the first death anniversary of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaders, including its former chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, a new political party will be launched by a film director in Tamil Nadu. The report adds that the latest entrant from the Tamil cinema is an ardent LTTE supporter Sebastian Seeman, who on April 10 unveiled the Naam Tamilar (We the Tamils) party's flag, which closely resembled the LTTE's Tiger insignia - barring the twin rifles in the background. Naam Tamilar, now functioning as a social outfit, aims to toe the hardline abandoned by other Dravidian parties over the years on issues ranging from the situation in Sri Lanka to Mullaiperiyar and seek a better deal for Tamils and Tamil Nadu. The organisation was formed during the last days of the Lankan conflict when Tamil Nadu witnessed a string of protests.

March 3: The German Police arrested six LTTE cadres suspected of raising funds for the outfit. The federal prosecution agency of Germany said on March 5 that the Police arrested three German nationals and three Sri Lankan nationals aged between 22 and 58 on March 3. The suspects were arrested during raids on eight premises including the Tamil Coordination Committee (TCC) in Oberhausen in Essen.

February 2: A court has heard three men who raised more than AUD one million for the LTTE. They were identified as Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, Sivarajah Yathavan and Arumugum Rajeevan. They were also senior cadres of the terrorist outfit in Australia. They admitted to giving money to the LTTE between 2004 and 2007. Vinayagamoorthy had also pleaded guilty to providing radio transmitters which, the prosecution argued, were used for paramilitary activity in Sri Lanka, including denotating roadside bombs.

January 22: A federal court in the United States sentenced two persons, identified as Sathajhan Sarachandran (30), and Nadarasa Yogarasa (55), to 26 and 14 years of imprisonment respectively, in connection with their efforts to purchase USD one million worth of high-powered weaponry for the LTTE, a designated foreign terrorist organization in the US. The two convicts, both Canadian Tamils, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an undercover sting operation when they attempted to purchase Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs), missile launchers, and hundreds of AK-47 automatic rifles at Long Island in New York on August 19, 2006.

2009

December 25: A Singapore opposition party member has been extradited to the United States (US) where he stands accused of trying to supply arms to the LTTE, according to a report. Balldev Naidu, 47, a businessman and co-founder of the Reform Party, was extradited on December 18, the Straits Times newspaper said quoting the Home Affairs Ministry. He is wanted on charges of acting as a broker between firearms manufacturers and the LTTE between February and September 2006, as well as seeking to export the arms illegally from the United States to Sri Lanka. His alleged accomplice, Singaporean Haniffa Osman, 57, had pleaded guilty to the charges in 2008 and was sentenced to 37 months' jail by a Baltimore court. Naidu had been detained in Singapore prior to the extradition following his arrest by local authorities in September 2009. He is a founding member of Singapore's opposition Reform Party. The party's secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam said last month that the US charges involved activities alleged to have occurred before the party was set up in 2008. Jeyaretnam had described Naidu as "a gentle family man and someone who would never intentionally become involved with terrorists or arms dealers".

December 21: Three Sri Lankan Tamils in Melbourne in Australia are to plead guilty to charges of providing money to the LTTE. Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, 35, Sivarajah Yathavan, 38, and Arumugam Rajeevan, 43, of New South Walse, are to plead guilty to a single charge of providing money to the LTTE, their lawyers informed the Australian Supreme Court. In addition, Vinayagamoorthy would plead guilty to providing radio transmitters to the terrorists. The three men were arrested in a raid in May 2007 and charged of being members of a banned organization and providing financial support to the organization. The prosecutors have charged the men with several counts but later dropped most of the charges. They are pleading guilty to single count of providing money to a banned organization. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Government said that it has identified up to three former LTTE militants seeking asylum in Australia on a boat intercepted after a personal request from Kevin Rudd to Indonesia's President. In allegations that will further complicate the processing of the 255 Tamils on a boat moored at the Indonesian port ofMerak, Colombo's high commissioner to Australia, Senaka Walgampaya, said Sri Lankan embassy officials in Jakarta had identified the individuals. "Of (the Oceanic Viking) lot we have no specific knowledge," Walgampaya told The Australian, adding, "But of those in the boat of Merak, I think open-source photographs have identified ex-Tamil Tigers." In October, a boat carrying 255 Tamil asylum-seekers to Australia was stopped by the Indonesian navy. The interception followed a phone call from the Prime Minister to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The Government was concerned that a successful venture of that size could have spurred a wave of boats with similar passenger loads. The boat and its passengers were taken to Merak, where it has remained ever since. The passengers have refused to get off, insisting they receive the same generous treatment as the Tamils who were rescued by the Customs vessel Oceanic Viking, the first of whom arrived in Australia on December 20 after being confirmed as refugees. Refugee advocates have expressed alarm at conditions on the boat in Merak and the fate of the handful of Tamils who have left it. Ian Rintoul, who has been in regular contact with the Tamils, said about 247 people remained on the boat.

December 19: 99.82 percent of 48,583 voters mandated independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the poll conducted in 31 centres across Canada.

December 13: 31,148 eligible Eezham Tamil Diaspora voters over 18 in France participated this weekend in the referendum to say yes or no to independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam and 30,936 of them said yes, reports LTTE Website Tamil Net. The postal votes permitted to interior areas of France are yet to be counted and is expected to be between 2,000 and 3,000. In the absence of any official statistics, Police estimates earlier placed the number of adult Eezham Tamils in France between 25,000 and 35,000. The referendum was organised by the formation committee of the country council of Eezham Tamils called "The House of Tamil Eelam," supported by 61 Eezham Tamil organisations in France and two NGOs, Mouvement de la Paix (Movement for Peace) and Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples).

Financial Times, on a follow-up article to October coverage on young Tamils, said that while the western crackdown on the LTTE’s financiers among the Diaspora, has created despondency among this often wealthy migrant community, the "clued-up second-generation migrants were turning to political lobbying," and that, "[t]hese young activists said the fight for Eelam, an independent Tamil homeland, was far from over."

December 11: Authorities in Thailand arrested five people, including a LTTE cadre, for producing and smuggling more than 300 fake EU passports and other official European documents, officials said. They said Police seized from the group more than 300 bogus passports, produced in Thailand but made to look like official documentation from 14 EU countries including Britain, France and Belgium. The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) said the suspects, all arrested since August 21, were 32-year-old Pakistani man Azad Said Giyani and a 35-year-old Sri Lankan man, known to be a LTTE cadre. A 43-year-old Thai woman was arrested for assisting them. A 38-year-old man from Myanmar was arrested on suspicion of producing the passports and a 28-year-old Thai woman is also being held for helping him.

In a statement the DSI said Thai authorities had also picked up a British national, Ahoor Rambarak Fathi, at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on September 27, 2009, carrying 104 stolen genuine passports. Fathi, travelling under fake Swedish documents, had passports from Britain, Spain, France, Sweden and Russia, that had been smuggled into Thailand. "He (Fathi) confessed that he had trafficked stolen passports into Thailand more than 20 times," the statement said. The DSI said Thailand is a known hub for the trafficking of fake and stolen passports.

December 7: The Palestinian Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Anwar Al- Agha, denied reports that a link exists between the People’s Liberation Organization (PLO) in Palestine and a new Tamil armed group called the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the East of Sri Lanka, according to Daily Mirror. Agha said that he was not even aware of the existence of such a group, and that it is not possible for such ties to exist. His observations follow a report which appeared in The Times hinting that an organization called the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in the East of Sri Lanka had the support of the well known PLO, who are active in Palestine, as well as another country. "We have had strong ties with the legitimate Government of Sri Lanka and have supported the Government in defeating terrorism and still support the Government in their efforts," he emphasized.

Sri Lanka Government spokesman for National Security and Defence Minister Keheliya Rambukwella speaking to Daily Mirror said that the country was on a reconciliation course and as such it was likely that groups of this nature would exist and added that the matter would be dealt with "politically and administratively". Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara stated that a matter of this nature needed to be backed by substantial evidence.

November 23: A court in France sentenced 20 out of 21 LTTE militants who were accused of extorting millions of Euros from the Tamil community in France to prison terms, reports Colombo Page. An AFP report said the leader of the group Nadaraja Matinthiran has been sentenced to seven years in prison for extorting USD 7.4 million (5 million Euros) as taxes from the Tamil community living in Paris and other surrounding areas to finance the LTTE terrorist activities in Sri Lanka. The other 19 defendants were sentenced to six year or less while one was acquitted. The court also ordered that the Coordinating Committee of Tamils-France be dismantled after ruling that it was a front for the LTTE.

According to the report most of the suspects were arrested in April 2007 and charged with criminal conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, financing of terrorism or racketeering to finance terrorism. French prosecutors said the Tigers imposed a "revolutionary tax" on the Tamil immigrants to France most of whom were political refugees living in Paris and neighbouring areas.

A Jane's Intelligence Review report in August 2007 said the LTTE's profit margin was some USD 200 to 300 million per year.

November 23: A court in France sentenced 20 out of 21 LTTE militants who were accused of extorting millions of Euros from the Tamil community in France to prison terms, reports Colombo Page. An AFP report said the leader of the group Nadaraja Matinthiran has been sentenced to seven years in prison for extorting USD 7.4 million (5 million Euros) as taxes from the Tamil community living in Paris and other surrounding areas to finance the LTTE terrorist activities in Sri Lanka. The other 19 defendants were sentenced to six year or less while one was acquitted. The court also ordered that the Coordinating Committee of Tamils-France be dismantled after ruling that it was a front for the LTTE, AFP reported.

According to the report most of the suspects were arrested in April 2007 and charged with criminal conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, financing of terrorism or racketeering to finance terrorism. French prosecutors said the Tigers imposed a "revolutionary tax" on the Tamil immigrants to France most of whom were political refugees living in Paris and neighbouring areas.

A Jane's Intelligence Review report in August 2007 said the LTTE's profit margin was some USD 200 to 300 million per year.

November 20: The new LTTE leadership’s plan to form a PTGTE came a cropper when about 90 percent of the Tamil Diaspora members showed their contempt by abstaining from voting for the proposed outfit. Nediyavan, who succeeded Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP as the new LTTE leader, was in for total disappointment when Tamils in Norway rejected his leadership on November 15. The Norway based LTTE leader decided to hold the first phase of PTGTE election in Norway itself hoping for a resounding victory to force Oslo to recognise the separatist outfit. But only 2,667 out of a total of 27,000 Tamils in Norway voted. The LTTE candidate lost and Vijaya Shankar, an Indian Tamil from Chennai - capital of southern Indian State of Tamil nadu - came first with 1,864 votes.

Norway’s leading news agency, NTB, on November 16 came out with an accurate analysis of the first ever election of Diaspora Tamils. It pointed out that the Diaspora had rejected the LTTE terrorism and now called for reconciliation.

November 5: Lawyers for the Federal Government in Canada revealed that at least two of the 76 men who came to Canada illegally on October 17 are cadres of the LTTE. Lawyers made the admission about the two alleged terrorists at a hearing on November 5. The migrants were found aboard a ship seized off the coast of British Columbia on October 17. When the ship was seized, it bore the name Ocean Lady. But investigators said that the vessel is actually the Princess Easwary, owned by the LTTE and once used to transport arms for the outfit in Sri Lanka.

November 4: A Singaporean opposition party member will be extradited to the United States (US) and tried for allegedly trying to supply arms to the LTTE, officials in Singapore said. 47-year old businessman Balldev Naidu is facing six charges, including conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation and possession of a firearm in 2006, a Court official told AFP. The Singapore Police said Naidu was arrested on September 22, 2009 following a US extradition request. He is alleged to have conspired with another Singaporean, identified as Haniffa Osman, now serving a 37-month US jail term for trying to buy weapons for the LTTE, the Straits Times reported. The newspaper added that the US charges correspond to Singapore’s laws against financing of terrorist groups. Naidu is a founding member of Singapore’s opposition Reform Party. However, its Secretary-General Kenneth Jeyaretnam said that the US charges involved alleged activities before the party was set up in 2008.

Chinese arms consignments for the LTTE had been moved overland to North Korea across the China-North Korea border before being transferred to the outfit’s ‘floating’ warehouses on the high seas close to Indonesia, for about a decade, The Island reported. The LTTE had reportedly obtained its first Chinese arms consignment way back in 1994/1995. On-going inquiries, well informed sources said, revealed that the China-North Korea overland transport of arms for the LTTE had operated for almost a decade before President Mahinda Rajapakse’s Government intervened about two years ago. Sources said that Sri Lanka’s much delayed intervention came as the LTTE moved to collect weapons directly from China once Sri Lanka received information regarding its clandestine overland route. Sources said that the LTTE had deployed several small vessels to move arms from North Korea to ‘floating’ warehouses. The Navy in four separate operations destroyed eight ‘floating’ warehouses on the high seas, three of them in one operation. An official source told The Island that there was no doubt that the vessel recently seized by the Canadians in their waters carrying 76 Sri Lankan Tamils had been one of the vessels which operated between North Korea and ‘floating’ arsenals.

Commenting on recent press reports that two items of clothing the men brought with them had tested positive for explosive residue, the official said a thorough survey of the ship, particularly hatches, would reveal the arms link. The Defence Ministry told The Island that Sri Lanka had sought access to the persons held in Canada as well as to the ship which allegedly visited at least two Indian ports in September 2009 after the collapse of the LTTE. Sources said that the LTTE had obtained arms on Eritrean end-user-certificates after Norwegian-brokered cease-fire agreement came into operation in February 2002. Sources emphasised that the Norway had set up LTTE-Eritrean link after the Chinese-North Korean route was exposed.

Sources also said that Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP had established the Chinese-North Korean route though the slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran replaced him with another person subsequently identified as ‘Castro’. The Japanese Government, too, investigated the North Korean link. Japanese investigators had visited Colombo and met with senior Defence Ministry and intelligence services officials in connection with their investigation, sources said.

Sources further said that the LTTE had obtained a considerable amount of weapons of East European origin, too, and smuggled them to north-eastern Sri Lanka.

A high profile US investigation had revealed that the LTTE had capacity to carry out mid-sea transfer about 200 nautical miles off Sri Lanka. Top LTTE representatives, including foreign nationals, who had negotiated with undercover US agents posing off as arms agents said that what they paid for, should be delivered to LTTE ships about 200 nautical miles off Sri Lanka. Millions worth of arms, ammunition and equipment captured by Sri Lanka consisted mainly of Chinese weapons, including a range of artillery pieces, sources added.

November 1: The Sri Lanka Government is seeking access to a group of Sri Lankan Tamils detained in Canada following intelligence reports that some of them are cadres of the LTTE. The suspected LTTE cadres, including some of those believed to be involved in the group's clandestine shipping operations, were arrested recently while approaching the Canadian coast in a LTTE-operated ship. An unnamed senior Government spokesman told The Sunday Island that representations had been made to the Canadian High Commission in Colombo in this regard. He said that the Sri Lankan mission in Canada, too, called for access to the detainees as this would help Sri Lankan intelligence services to track down remaining LTTE operatives based abroad. An intelligence official said the Canadians have been fully briefed of the presence of LTTE cadres on board the seized vessel.

October 16-17: A US-based hedge-fund billionaire charged as part of an insider-trading case was investigated by US authorities for allegedly raising funds for the LTTE, The Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper said federal agents had uncovered documents showing that Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in the US whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the LTTE. Rajaratnam, 52, was among six people arrested on October 16. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said this is the largest-ever hedge-fund insider-trading case, the paper noted. Prosecutors allege Rajaratnam and his ring of alleged co-conspirators earned US$ 20 million in improper gains, the report said. Rajaratnam’s New York-based Galleon fund firm manages $ 3.7 billion in investments.

As part of a separate terrorism probe, which was led by the FBI in Brooklyn, New York, eight other people have pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to the LTTE, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Wall Street Journal stated. Documents in a federal criminal complaint filed in US District Court in New York’s Eastern District include allegations by federal agents that money donated to a US charity called TRO USA, of Cumberland, Maryland, was funnelled to the LTTE, the paper noted. The case was brought against Karunakaran Kandasamy, described by prosecutors as the head of the US branch of the LTTE, the paper said. In the same case, an FBI agent cites documents uncovered in court-authorized searches as showing donations to TRO USA made by a person identified only as "individual B."

October 12: 22 suspected LTTE cadres went on trial on October 12 for running an extortion racket among Paris's (France) ethnic Tamil Diaspora to fund their separatist struggle in Sri Lanka, according to Straits Times. The defendants include Nadaraja Matinthiran, the alleged leader in France of the LTTE, which is accused of extorting some five million euros (S$10 million) from the country's 75,000 Tamils. Also in the dock is a group called the Tamil Coordination Committee in France, believed to be a legal front for the LTTE, which has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union since 2006. Most of the Paris suspects were arrested in April 2007 and charged with criminal conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, financing of terrorism or racketeering to finance terrorism. It is believed that the LTTE exert a controlling influence over the political life of the 1.5-million-strong world Tamil Diaspora, in many cases levying a 'revolutionary tax' based on household size and income.

October 1: Balraj Naidu, who was a influential committee member of the Singapore Reform Party, has been arrested and produced in court for an extradition hearing over an alleged arms deal with the LTTE, Daily News reported on October 1. Naidu was arrested on a warrant and produced in courts, said the Singapore Strait Times. The man was arrested at his home last week and brought to court on September 29 for a brief court appearance. The businessman is wanted by the United States (US) Government on two terrorism related charges. He is also wanted by the US for allegedly brokering arms deals with the LTTE. No formal charges have, however, been laid against him so far. The extradition hearing was adjourned until October 5. The Strait Times said the US Government made the request for an extradition during the middle of 2009. According to Sri Lankan intelligence sources, the LTTE made many of their purchases from arms dealers in Singapore.

July 20: Canada was one of the top sources of funding for the LTTE, providing up to $12-million a year, says a secret intelligence report obtained by the National Post. In a classified report written in June 2008, federal officials wrote that the outfit was getting much of their money from Canada. "Canada's Tamil community has been among the LTTE's largest sources of funds, having contributed up to $10- to $12-million annually in past years," the report said. A copy of the report was released to National Post under the Access to Information Act. The RCMP began investigating LTTE fundraising efforts in Canada in 2002. Police believe the outfit raised money in Toronto and Montreal to finance weapons purchases, but investigators have never said the dollar figures were so high. "The LTTE through its many front organizations in other countries, including Canada, has conducted extensive fundraising and other activities to support its efforts in Sri Lanka," the report added. The tactics used to collect money were "often coercive," it said, naming the Toronto-based World Tamil Movement (WTM) as the outfit’s leading front in Canada. "As such, the WTM has been instrumental in fundraising in Canada on behalf of the LTTE." Police searched the World Tamil Movement offices in Ontario and Quebec in 2006. In 2009, the Government banned the group under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Federal lawyers are now in court trying to seize its properties and bank accounts. The organization has, however, denied any wrongdoing.

June 19: A person identified as Arunachal Chrishanthakumar aka A.C. Shanthan, who bought electronic and computer equipment for the banned LTTE that could have been used to make a bomb, was jailed for two years. The 52-year-old from Norbury was found guilty of charges relating to conspiracy to receive and receiving property that could be used for terrorism at Kingston Crown Court on April 17.  A judge at the Old Bailey jailed him for two years for the conspiracy count and one year for receiving property; the sentences will run concurrently. Deputy Assistant Commissioner John McDowall, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter terrorism command and senior national co-ordinator counter terrorism, said: "Shanthan bought component parts which have been used in the past by the LTTE to make improvised explosive devices. He purchased electrical equipment including circuit boards, GPS and antenna equipment and sent it to Sri Lanka for terrorists to use.  He spent more than £13,000 in just 14 months on military publications, manuals and guides to be used as reference for military attack planning, yet denied he was involved in any terrorist activity".

June 12: A leading British Tamil leader, identified as Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar (52) of the British Tamil Association, was imprisoned for two years for helping the LTTE. He was earlier convicted of illegally procuring equipment for the LTTE. The prosecution said he had procured equipment for the LTTE with an "obvious terrorist purpose". Three others tried along with him were, however, cleared. Sentencing him, Justice Saunders said: "This was a protracted, deliberate breaking of a law. These are very serious offences which warrant substantial sentences. The terrorist law has to be obeyed as part of our obligations."

June 10: More than 12 youngsters who were subjected to the LTTE extortion and death threats in Norway were to seek an urgent meeting with Norway’s Director of Police, since the Norwegian Police have so far failed to take the LTTE threats with deserving seriousness. The disclosure on Norwegian National Television (NRK) on June 10 came in the wake of an interview given by the Oslo-based Tamil journalist, Nadaraja Sethurupan, who had been assaulted and threatened with death by Norway-Oslo based LTTE cadres more than ten times in the past two years. The journalist, who has been living in Norway for more than eight years, has covered Norway initiated Sri Lankan peace process for media and has been a contributor to many media networks. "A few weeks ago, outside the US Embassy in Oslo, myself and my family were given final death threats by Tigers, asking me to stop writing against them. They do not like what I write and threaten me to write what they want," Sethurupan said.

June 9: Four persons pleaded guilty in the federal court at Brooklyn in US for conspiring to provide support to the LTTE outfit. The United States Attorney in Brooklyn, Benton J. Campbell, said the four defendants had raised millions of dollars and obtained weapons and technology for the LTTE. Prosecutors said one of the four defendants, identified as Karunakaran Kandasamy (51), was the director of the outfit’s American branch. Prosecutors also said that two others, Pratheepan Thavaraja and Murugesu Vinayagamoorthy, had been involved in an attempt to bribe an agent posing as a State Department official to remove the LTTE from the Government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. The Government said that the LTTE, which dated to the 1970s, had relied on "sympathetic Tamil expatriates" to raise and launder money for the group. The Government said, for example, that Vinayagamoorthy had helped to launder LTTE money through a Swiss bank to cover a trip to Sri Lanka by a congressman.

May 31: The ongoing demonstration outside the UK Parliament in Westminster by the pro- LTTE demonstrators has since its inception 43 days ago cost the country's largest Police force almost eight million pound sterling, revealed the Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. Speaking to a Home Affairs Committee he said the demonstration meant that the Police force was extraordinarily stretched, adding, "We have to provide such a level of resources that it is reducing policing on the streets of London." During the last 43 days, these pro-LTTE supporters had been there around the clock, waving flags with the LTTE insignia in violation of the UK Anti Terrorism laws. On a couple of occasions the demonstrators had made their way to the Indian High Commission in Holborn and protested there. On the first occasion they had pelted stones and other missiles and managed to break the bullet proof windows of the Indian High commission. They have also staged demonstrations outside the Sri Lankan embassy several times and have pelted stones at the embassy.

May 24: Five 'Sam's Chicken' outlets owned by prominent Sinhala businessman, Sam Chandrasinha, at Wembley, Kingsbury, Wilsden, Sudbury Hill and Cricklewood in London were attacked by suspected LTTE supporters last week. Chandrasinha said that these attacks were launched during the early and late night hours of May 20, adding, "Glass fronts were smashed, but we quickly repaired them and started business again. However, the staff who are Sinhalese were deeply disturbed by these attacks." Chandrasinha had donated nearly £30,000 to the Api Wenuwen Api (Together for All) fund - to carry out housing project for the Security Forces - a few months ago. Police are investigating but no arrests have been made so far. It was also reported that acid has been thrown at two Sinhala youths in Harrow. Details of the incident were not available.

May 18: Security alarms were automatically activated at the UN's compound in Geneva interrupting the proceeding of the World Health Assembly (WHA) on when Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, the newly elected President of the WHA, was presiding the plenary and the high level delegate of the United States of America was in the process of delivering the speech. According to the security division of the WHO and the UN in Geneva, the LTTE supporters who had been protesting outside the UN against the election of Health Minister de Silva of Sri Lanka as the President of the WHA, entered the UN compound through the main gates despite security resistance. The UN security at the gate 40 activated alarms and repeatedly announced to the UN staff and the delegates to remain inside the building. The Security Force personnel of the UN and the WHO later took measures to disperse the protestors.

May 16: Suspected LTTE supporters set ablaze the Buddhist Temple at Scarborough in Toronto, while the resident monks were sleeping in the temple. Three monks in the temple escaped unhurt. The incident happened less than a week after the attacks on the Sri Lankan Buddhist temples in Paris on May 10 and London and May 14 by the LTTE mob in those cities.

The Sri Lankan mission in Hague in Netherlands was once again attacked by LTTE supporters, the Foreign Ministry said. This was the second time the LTTE supporters have attacked the Embassy in Hague within a week. According to the Ministry, a petrol bomb was hurled at the Embassy building. Suspected LTTE supporters attacked the Sri Lankan Embassy in Hague on May 11th and broke window panes and causing damage to the Embassy.

May 13: The Sri Saddhatissa International Buddhist Centre based in Kingsbury North West London was attacked, Venerable Galayaye Piyadassi Thero, the centre head, told. "The attackers threw stones at the front windows and fled away," he said. Blaming the LTTE for the attack, he said that although no one was harmed the loss incurred is heavy. "This is the ninth occasion where the Buddhist Centre has been attacked," he added. Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Government called on the British authorities to tighten security to its community and the Buddhist temples there, following the attack on the Kingsbury temple.

May 11-12: Suspected LTTE supporters on May 11 attacked the Sri Lankan Embassy at Hague in Netherlands, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said on May 12, according to Colombo Page. It also said the attackers had broken some window panes and caused damage to the Embassy. However, their attempt to break into the Embassy premises is reported to have failed. The Sri Lanka Embassy while condemning the attack requested the Dutch Government to tighten the security of the mission and ensure the safety of the staff and also launch an immediate inquiry into the incident.

Canada said on May 12 that Tamil-Canadian protests in the country show that the LTTE is part of the demonstrations. The Minister of International Co-operation Beverley Oda told the media that "the flags being flown would say to Canadians that ... the terrorist organization is part of the demonstrations that happened." Oda said she has seen red flags being flown at the protests bearing the symbol of the outfit. Thousands of people who assembled onto the Gardiner Expressway on May 11 left only after receiving assurances that the Liberals would raise their plight in Parliament. Further, the Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has urged protesters not to carry the LTTE flag at their protests.

May 10: Following the attack on the Paris Buddhist Temple by a group of LTTE supporters, the Sri Lankan Embassy in Paris urged all Sri Lankans living in France to inform the Police of any threat or attack on them. The Embassy also urged the Sri Lankans to inform it about any such development in order to take prompt action. Suspected LTTE supporters attacked the main Sri Lankan Buddhist Temple in Paris, the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry said. A group of masked men damaged the windows of the Temple. The Chief Monk of the Temple, Ven. Paravahera Chandraratane Thero, and another monk had been present at the time, but no one had been hurt. Earlier there were several attacks on Sri Lankan shops in France by suspected LTTE supporters.

May 7: Some 150 LTTE sympathizers carrying flags and chanting slogans attacked the Chinese Embassy in London. Supporters of the banned LTTE attacked the embassy and damaged many windows of the office while attempting to enter inside the building, Police said. Three protesters were arrested but later released on bail.

April 17: A London court convicted a man described as the head of the LTTE in Britain on two terror-linked charges, including supplying bomb-making equipment to the outfit. Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar (52) was found guilty of coordinating supplies of material to the LTTE and was also convicted of receiving documents for the purpose of terrorism after a trial at Kingston Crown Court. Jurors failed to reach verdicts on three other charges against Chrishanthakumar alias A.C. Shanthan, plus one charge against another accused Jegatheeswaran Muraleetharan. The Court is to take a decision next week on whether to hold a re-trial.

April 16: The LTTE directly controlled a Canadian registered non-profit organization that fundraised and produced propaganda for the outfit, according to the Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP) documents. The documents allege that the director of the Toronto-based World Tamil Movement (WTM) of Ontario was personally appointed by the LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. In addition, the documents claim the WTM was told in 2005 to help raise $7-million to finance the purchase of anti-aircraft missiles and artillery needed to fight a war for Tamil independence. RCMP forensic accounting reports allege that between 2002 and 2006, the WTM in Toronto wired almost $3-million to overseas accounts with most of the money going to a bank account in Malaysia. The funds raised by the WTM in Canada "have been transmitted to the LTTE for the benefit of the LTTE which is a listed terrorist group in Canada." The financial reports also note that close to $500,000 was sent to a group called Social and Economic Organization for Tamils or SEDOT. The report said the Sri Lankan Army had recently found a underground bunker of Prabhakaran and that it was located in a SEDOT village. "I believe funds collected by the WTM were collected under the direction of the LTTE and that documents seized from the WTM indicate that the purpose of collections was for the LTTE objective of an independent state," RCMP Corporal David Kim wrote. The WTM, which the RCMP says is the Canadian financial and propaganda support wing of the LTTE, has denied its involvement. But in an interview with RCMP officers in 2004, Mariyathas Manuel, the then president of the WTM, admitted he had met Prabhakaran in Sri Lanka and that Prabhakaran leader had selected him to run the WTM office in Toronto. "I believe that this shows that the LTTE is in direct control of the operation of the WTM," RCMP Corporal David Kim wrote in an affidavit.

The Canadian Government placed the WTM on its official list of terrorist entities in June 2008, calling it a front for the LTTE and accusing it of using threats and intimidation to elicit donations from Canadians of Sri Lankan origin. The Canadian Government is now using the Anti-Terrorism Act to attempt to take over the WTM's buildings, bank accounts and other property.

April 15: Canada has done its best to end the long-running conflict in Sri Lanka, but will not bow to pressure to remove the LTTE from the list of banned terrorist groups, the Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told reporters in Calgary. For more than a week, Tamil supporters have been gathering around the Parliament Hill to protest against the war in Sri Lanka and asking Canada to intervene. "We have done everything that these protesters are asking Canada to do - namely call for a ceasefire - except we will not respond to a demand of anyone to legalize a banned, illegal terrorist organization," the Minister said. He added that Canada has called for a cease-fire from both sides, asked the Sri Lankan Government to ensure international support reaches people in need and increased Canada’s humanitarian aid, adding, but the LTTE is responsible for suicide bombings, and the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. In 2006, Canada placed the LTTE on a list of banned terrorist organizations under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, which prohibits financing such groups.

April 13: The Royal Norwegian Government apologized to Sri Lanka following attack on the Sri Lankan Embassy in Oslo. Condemning the unauthorized entry into the Sri Lankan Embassy by protesters Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in a Statement said that the attack is a violation of Norwegian law and an action that is totally unacceptable. "The Police have been ordered to provide better protection for the Embassy," the Statement added. As reported earlier, pro- LTTE demonstrators broke into the Sri Lankan embassy during a protest in the Norwegian capital Oslo on April 12, destroying windows and furniture.

April 12-13: Following the attack by the pro-LTTE Tamil protesters on Sri Lanka mission in Oslo, the Sri Lankan Government stripped Norway of its role as a peace facilitator of the country’s peace process with the LTTE, a Government official said. Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry summoned the Norwegian Ambassador in Colombo, Torre Hattrem, to the Ministry to lodge an official protest, the Foreign Ministry said.

April 12: Pro-LTTE demonstrators broke into the Sri Lankan embassy during a protest in the Norwegian capital Oslo, destroying windows and furniture. But no one was injured in the incidents, the Police added. "They damaged windows and broke some things inside and then disappeared - we have not caught anyone," Police officer Tor Groettum told Reuters. The protest, the first of several by LTTE supporters around the world in recent weeks to turn violent, followed a march by around 100,000 people in London on April 11 to demand a cease-fire between Sri Lankan forces and the outfit. Tamils began demonstrating in Oslo last week to pressure Norway, one of four nations heading Sri Lanka''s peace process, to use its influence to stop the violence in the country.

March 30-31: A tactical meeting on the front organizations of LTTE was hosted by Eurojust [the EU institution responsible for co-ordination of investigations and prosecutions between competent authorities in the Member States], on March 30-31, 2009 in the Hague, Netherlands. The Meeting was attended by representatives of the Intelligence and Criminal Justice communities of EU member States, non-EU countries, including Sri Lanka and the Europol, said a press release issued by the Sri Lanka Embassy in Brussels. Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and EU, Ravinatha Aryasinha, said that notwithstanding its proscription as a terrorist entity within the EU since May 2006, the LTTE, through front organizations such as the TRO and Tamil Coordination Committee, has continued to circumvent the impositions placed on them.

March 19: Sri Lanka Government will lodge strong protests with countries where there have been demonstrations in favour of the LTTE, said the Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe. He said that pro-LTTE sympathisers have been staging demonstrations in Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States, using LTTE propaganda. Several Tamils have also attempted self-immolation in Geneva and London. "The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) is a banned organisation in some of these countries. We are surprised these countries allow LTTE sympathisers to use the LTTE flags so openly in their protests against us," the minister told reporters in Colombo.

Following the incident of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils waving the LTTE flags at a rally in Toronto on March 16, Canadian authorities have launched an investigation whether their action violated the nation's new anti-terror laws. The Canadian Government banned the LTTE in 2006.

March 2: A "martyrs' prayer event" was held at Toronto in Canada in the honour of the two LTTE pilots killed during the failed suicide air attack on the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on February 20. The RCMP and Toronto Police officer showed up with video cameras and filmed as the LTTE flag was raised and several hundred people laid flowers at a makeshift shrine to the dead militants. Toronto is home to the world's largest population of Sri Lankan Tamils and many are reportedly sympathetic to the LTTE. The RCMP has said the city has become a lucrative fundraising base for the LTTE.

February 23: Police in France arrested six Sri Lankan Tamils accused of killing a Police officer in Paris. Sugeeswara Senadheera, Minister Counsellor of the Sri Lankan embassy in Paris, told BBC Sandeshaya that all of them were LTTE members. The French Policeman was shot dead, Senadheera said, as he questioned the group collecting money for a banned organisation. "The only banned organisation that Tamil people are collecting money in France is the LTTE," he said. The group's leader was identified as Kandaiyah, a man who has links with the LTTE, according to the official. A Tamil woman is also among the arrested. The French Police arrested 19 suspected LTTE members in 2008. "There is also a link between the two incidents as the shooting incident has happened in front of the LTTE Paris leader's residence," he said.

February 11: The US Department of Treasury designated the Maryland-based Tamil Foundation as a front organization of the LTTE under Executive Order 13224 which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism.

January 28: The chief of the LTTE unit in Britain helped supply military equipment to the outfit, a London court heard. Prosecutors alleged that 52-year-old Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar alias A.C. Shanthan led the acquisition of funding and materials bound for the LTTE. Chrishanthakumar appeared at Kingston Crown Court in London charged with five offences, ranging from receiving electrical devices for terrorism, possessing terrorist documents, and belonging to a banned organisation. Three others - Jegatheswaran Muraleetharan alias Muralee Tharan, his brother Jeyatheswaran Vythyatharan alias Vithy Tharan and Murugesu Jegatheeswaran alias M. Jegan - are accused of receiving electronic items for use in terrorism.

January 27: National Post reports that the trial of three Canadians accused of traveling to New York in 2006 to buy anti-aircraft missiles and assault rifles for the LTTE ended following two more guilty pleas. Sahilal Sabaratnam and Thiruthanikan Thanigasalam pleaded guilty to conspiracy to support a foreign terrorist group and conspiracy to buy missiles. Their co-accused, Sathajhan Sarachandran, had already pleaded guilty on January 26. They each face a minimum sentence of 25 years with a maximum of life imprisonment after admitting they were part of a Canadian-based arms procurement cell of the LTTE. "With these convictions we have sent a clear message that the LTTE and its supporters cannot use the United States as a source of supply for deadly weapons and technology, and that all terrorists who attempt to do so will be met with the full resources of law enforcement," US Attorney Benton Campbell said.

January 26: A trial began in US against four men charged with seeking to supply missiles and assault weapons to the LTTE. The FBI engineered a sting in which three of the men drove from Canada to New York City in 2006 to meet with undercover agents posing as black-market arms dealers. Prosecutors say the men were caught on tape agreeing to buy 10 surface-to-air missiles and 500 rifles for $ 900,000. US authorities say the three men were on a secret mission to help LTTE by buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of surface-to-air missiles and smuggling them into Sri Lanka. The three men, identified as Sathajhan Sarachandran, Sahilal Sabaratnam and Thiruthanikan Thanigasalam, who had been living in Canada, along with the fourth one, were jailed without bail after pleading not guilty. Each of them face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

2008

December 14: Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg, Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha, said in Hague that sufficient evidence was available that operations of front organisations are an integral part of the LTTE as seen in recent action against the outfit’s fronts in the US and Canada.

December 4: A suspect, charged in connection with a North American network that police allege provides weapons to the LTTE, is to be extradited to the US. However, 31-year old Ramanan Mylvaganam will remain in Canada while he appeals the extradition order by a Federal Court judge, according to Justice Canada. Mylvaganam, a computer engineering student at University of Waterloo who came to Canada from Sri Lanka in 1992, was arrested on August 22, 2006 at his Derry Rd. E. apartment by the Royal Canadian Mountain Police. He was detained on a provisional warrant at the request of American authorities. One month later, Mylvaganam was granted bail and returned to university, where he continued to pursue a master's degree until being returned into custody last week. Mylvaganam served as a vice-president of the university's Tamil Students Association in 2004. He and four other Ontario men have been charged with one count each of conspiring to provide material support and resources to the LTTE.

November 30: Italy recognised the dangerous potential of terrorists by arresting those with alleged links to the LTTE, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Italy, Hemantha Warnakulasuriya told Adnkronos International (AKI). In an interview with AKI in Rome, Warnakulasuriya said the Italian government had taken the lead in Europe in clamping down on anyone who tried to extort money from the Sri Lankan community to support the outfit. Italian authorities in June arrested 28 suspected LTTE sympathisers in nine Italian cities, including Rome and Naples. Warnakulasuriya said others had been arrested elsewhere in Italy. "The Italian Government supports Sri Lanka in its fight against terror agents. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is a terror organisation whose tentacles spread all over the world," he told AKI, adding, "It is an organisation against civilisation and democracy. The Italians realised this and prosecuted those involved."

November 23: A few LTTE supporters who tried to disrupt a peaceful demonstration held by the Sri Lankans in Paris had to make a hasty retreat under police protection. The LTTE supporters started to shout pro-LTTE slogans when the demonstration began at 3.00pm and some of the LTTE supporters made threatening gestures to the demonstrators, but when the young girls and boys started to shout slogans denouncing the outfit, the LTTE supporters had to retreat.

November 3: A fugitive Sri Lankan has been given the maximum sentence of 45 months for his role in the theft of 80 assault rifles from a Swiss Army depot two years ago. The district court in canton Berne handed a sentence of 42 months to one of the three Swiss defendants, and gave suspended sentences of 14 and 24 months to two accomplices. One of the thieves was said to have been inspired by the conflict between the Forces and the LTTE. His Tamil acquaintance apparently had the right connections to smuggle weapons into Sri Lanka. But the Swiss were caught out by an undercover agent and eventually arrested. Most of their booty stolen from a depot in canton Fribourg was recovered. The court ruled in favour of the harsh sentences because, it said, the thieves were unconcerned by the suffering the weapons could cause. The theft provided ammunition of army critics at the time who were calling for a ban on military weapons being stored at home. The Defence Ministry said that more than 4,300 army guns had been lost or stolen over the past 10 years.

October 30: A Singaporean arms dealer who was charged for conspiracy to provide material support to the LTTE has been sentenced to 37 months in prison by a US federal judge. The US District Judge Catherine C. Blake sentenced 57-year-old Haniffa Bin Osman of Singapore to 37 months in prison for conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and money laundering, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein announced. A media statement released by the US Department of Justice said that from April to September 29, 2006 the accused conspired to supply the LTTE with state-of-the-art firearms, machine guns and ammunition, surface-to-air missiles, night vision goggles and other military weapons to be used to fight against Sri Lankan government forces. In 2006, Osman has told the undercover agents in Baltimore that the weapons were for the LTTE and the outfit had wired a deposit of $250,000 as a down payment for the purchase of the weapons. The other conspirators, Indonesian nationals Haji Subandi and Erick Wotulo and Sri Lankan Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa have pleaded guilty and been sentenced earlier.

October 13: In the wake of the US announcement on October 11 that it has decided to remove North Korea from the list of "state sponsors of terrorism" a Counter Terrorism Foundation (CTF) in US has revealed there was ample evidence to prove North Korea had armed the LTTE. The CTF further revealed that a Congressional Research Service Brief submitted to the US Congress in January 2008 had detailed possible links between North Korea and the LTTE.

September 5: Three members of the TCHR, a pro-LTTE Non Governmental Organisation were evicted from the 61st Annual UNESCO Conference of DPI/NGO at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris \. The UNESCO conference authorities cancelled the registration of the three members - S.V.Kirubahar, Director TCHR, France, Mrs Deirdre McConnel Kirubahara, Director TCHR, UK and J. Jean-Marie, Program Officer, TCHR, Paris – who had registered as participants submitting false information to the Department of Public Information of UNESCO and the DPI/NGO Conference Secretariat in Paris and New York.

September 2: The Papua New Guinea intelligence officials (NIO) have arrested 12 Sri Lankan nationals linked to the LTTE who were on the run from the Sri Lankan security forces. They were arrested from a Port Moresby hotel and were allegedly planning to go to Australia using falsified documents, the NIO sources said.

August 18: A secret report released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on August 18 says that the Toronto based non-profit group, the WTM, wired more than $3 million to overseas bank accounts to allegedly utilize for financing the LTTE. The 83-page report, marked "Secret" but unsealed by order of a Federal Court judge, provides the first detailed look at the banking activities of the WTM and says, "The bank records seized . . . demonstrate that the World Tamil Movement has developed an elaborate machine like entity that moves throughout the Greater Toronto Area collecting funds with extreme proficiency."

August 7: A Sri Lankan national was jailed in the United Kingdom for two years and nine months when he confessed that he was blackmailed to work for the LTTE to clone 500 credit cards of British customers for the outfit to steal 175000 British Pounds.

July 15: Australian Federal Police (AFP) arrested, at the request of the US FBI, a director of a Melbourne business college believed to be linked to the LTTE over alleged terrorism offences in the US. Thulasitharan Santhirarajah is expected to face extradition proceedings after his arrest when AFP agents raided homes and businesses around Melbourne, including the office of his Melbourne International College. A spokesman for federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said, "The man is wanted to face prosecution for alleged terrorism offences in the United States of America." Apart from the city office of the college, AFP agents raided five properties and businesses in Narre Warren, Dandenong and Lysterfield.

A resolution was tabled in the US Congress calling on the US Government and the international community to encourage the deployment of an international human rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka and help maintain law and order in the island nation. Resolution 1338, sponsored by Representative Brad Sherman of California, and co-sponsored by Congressmen Frank Pallon Jr of New Jersey and Jerry Weller of Illinois, has messages for the Sri Lankan Government, the TMVP, the LTTE and the US President. The preamble clauses accuse the TMVP of being "formally allied with the government" and continuing to "commit serious human rights violations and criminal acts with impunity".

June 22: The European broadcasts of the Tharisanam Television - a major propaganda arm of the LTTE is to be suspended immediately, the service announced. It is believed the Television Service which has been used for a long period of time as an organ not only for LTTE propaganda but also as a tool to raise funds for the terrorist organisations much needed weapons and ammunition, that have been also used to harm civilians through their suicide bombers and claymore mines became a major cause for Israeli Government to bring pressure on the Israeli satellite company to suspend the broadcasts.

June 18: Italian Police said they have arrested 33 suspected LTTE members in pre-dawn raids across the country. Police in Naples said the suspects were arrested in 10 cities including Rome, Genoa, Bologna, Naples and Palermo at the end of a two-year investigation. Some 200 police personnel were involved in the operation which saw raids across the country including the island of Sicily. Police believe the suspects, all Sri Lankan citizens, extorted money from their fellow nationals in the various cities and sent it home to finance the LTTE. Luigi Bonacura of the Naples police said the operation effectively dismantled the LTTE network in Italy. Tamil expatriates in Italy are forced to contribute money to the LTTE, Police said. The funds are taken out of Italy through Swiss banks. Three months ago the Italian authorities closed down an illegal LTTE propaganda TV channel operating from Italian territory. Neapolitan police team has also discovered a kind of intelligence service in the LTTE called TIG, which controls people from Sri Lanka of the Tamil ethnic group resident in Italy, holding detailed files and photos, both of supporters and non-supporters of the organisation. Reports on Italian TV speculated that the annual amount extorted from expatriate Tamils in Italy was around four million euros (6.2 million dollars).

Malaysia launched an inquiry into an allegation that some persons in Malaysia had given instructions to the LTTE in Sri Lanka to carry out bomb attacks in the capital Colombo and its suburbs. Malaysian Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said his Government would investigate the matter thoroughly, and take severe action against any Malaysians with links to the LTTE. The action was initiated following Sri Lankan media reports that six suspects, who were arrested in Wattala with explosives last week, were waiting for instructions over the phone from persons in Malaysia to carry out bomb attacks in Colombo.

June 16: The Canadian Cabinet has outlawed the Toronto-based front organization of the LTTE, the WTM, under the Anti-Terrorism Act. "The Anti-Terrorism Act, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, allows federal Cabinet to prepare a list of ‘entities’ whose activities are proscribed by Canadian law due to their involvement in terrorist violence," the report added. The directive issued by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions advised banks and insurance companies to notify the Royal Canadian Mountain Police or Canadian Security Intelligence Service if they held any accounts linked to the WTM.

May 27: Prapaharan Thambithurai, a Canadian citizen based in Toronto, has been charged with allegedly raising money for the LTTE. "The funds were allegedly raised for the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers) which is a listed terrorist organisation in Canada,'' said the Royal Canadian Mountain Police. Thambithurai who was arrested on May 23 in Vancouver has been charged with providing or making available property or services for terrorist purposes. Police allege the funds were being collected from members of Vancouver's 6,000-8,000 strong Sri Lankan community.

May 25: Three LTTE suspects, who were arrested by the British police for conspiring to procure equipment to the LTTE, were granted bail by the British Courts. Reports said that a fourth man was not released as he has not applied for bail. Jegatheswaran Muraleetharan alias Muralee Tharan, Jeyatheswaran Vythyatharan alias Vithy Tharan, Murugesu Jegatheeswaran alias M. Jegan and Shanthan are charged with conspiring to receive equipment for terrorist purposes between January 2003 and December 2006. Shanthan was granted bail with a large financial security and on condition that he contacts the police by phone daily through voice recognition equipment.

May 21: The French police detained two LTTE leaders who evaded arrest in 2007 and fled the country when police closed in on them during the major round up of top outfit’s leaders operating in Paris. The Sous-Directorate Anti-Terrorism of France announced that the duo, Subramanium Muhundan and Yogarasa Sivarasan, were arrested in Paris on May 13 after investigations lasting several months. They were heading the LTTE political and finance units since the arrest of 26 LTTE cadres, including top leaders of all the divisions of the outfit, on April 1, 2007.

May 8: The British police have charged four men with conspiring to support the LTTE, Scotland Yard said. The four were arrested under anti-terrorism laws and are accused of owning computers, radio equipment and high-power magnets for terrorist purposes, AFP reported from London. The four men were identified as Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar alias AC Shanthan, 51; Jegatheswaran Muraleetharan alias Muralee Tharan, 46; Jeyatheswaran Vythyatharan alias Vithy Tharan, 39; and Murugesu Jegatheeswaran alias M Jegan, 33. An unidentified fifth man has also been charged in connection with the investigation, Scotland Yard said.

May 6: Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar alias A. C. Shanthan (51), the de-facto leader of the LTTE in the United Kingdom, was re-arrested in connection with terrorist funding and procurement activities. Wiltshire Police sources said that Shanthan was arrested by the anti-terrorist units of the metropolitan Police together with Wiltshire Police at Swindon in the Wiltshire Constabulary on May 6 in a pre-dawn raid. He was re-arrested after three more people were detained for questioning on April 29. Shanthan was earlier arrested on June 28, 2007, before being released on bail on November 22, 2007. Shanthan was alleged to have been operating with Anton Balasingham very closely to build up the outfit in London.

The RCMP counterterrorism investigators in Toronto have seized a letter signed by the LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran directing Canadian Tamils to send him Canadian $3-million, according to police files released on May 6 by the Federal Court. The letter, found during a search of the Toronto office of the World Tamil Movement, discusses the need to "intensify the struggle" and ensure that Tamils are "strong enough" to fight "with our full breath," according to the newly unsealed files. Prabhakaran also said that he looks "forward to receiving substantial contribution from the displaced people of Tamil Eelam" and advises the "Canadian office" to provide 15 of the 100 "crores" he needs.

May 5: A RCMP affidavit, made public on May 2 by the Federal Court, has revealed the Canadian operations of the LTTE. The affidavit describes the WTM as a "foreign branch" of the LTTE.

April 29: London's Metropolitan Police arrested three suspects in London and Wales for allegedly supporting the LTTE in Sri Lanka as a part of an investigation into the funding of the terrorist group. Two suspects, aged 46 and 39, were detained in the Welsh county of Powys, while a 33-year old man was arrested in London's Mitcham area by the Metropolitan Police.

April 22: The London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, is reported to have addressed a meeting co-organised by the British Tamil Forum (BTF), a front for the LTTE, even though he had been warned at the highest diplomatic levels about the group's alleged terrorist links. The Mayor sought backing from the BTF, banned in Britain under anti-terrorism laws, at the meeting in Harrow on April 19, according to the BTF spokesman. A spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission in London said, "The British Tamil Forum is one of the main front organisations for the Tigers in the UK," the spokesman said, adding, "We did not know whether the Mayor knew what the background to the meeting was so the High Commissioner wrote to inform him." At a previous meeting organised by the BTF, at the Excel Centre, Docklands, on November 27, 2007 a video message from the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, praising suicide bombing was played and a collection was taken for the outfit’s "martyrs".

April 14: The Canadian Government issued a Federal Court restraining order against the World Tamil Movement (WTM), a non-profit organization for Canadian Tamils, Canadian media reports said. Counterterrorism police in Quebec and Ontario on April 11 reportedly shut down the WTM office in Montreal alleging that the organization has been raising money to finance terrorist activities in Sri Lanka after a Federal Court judge has issued an order to seal the office. According to the Canadian media, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has accused the WTM of collecting "war taxes" from Canada's large ethnic Tamil community and financing the LTTE war machine in Sri Lanka.

April 9: The largest ever 'anti-LTTE' petition, sponsored by the Sri Lanka United Nationals Association, with 1,068 signatures from the Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Malay and Burgher communities from the Sri Lankan expatriates, was submitted to the House of Commons by Art Hanger, Member of Parliament of Conservative Party.

April 7: The Washington Times reported that the LTTE's political wing has established its branches in at least 12 countries, including the United States. Citing federal law-enforcement authorities, the report said that the LTTE have quietly established a presence in the US to help bankroll and equip its secessionist campaign in Sri Lanka. "As part of a global expansion to purchase millions of dollars worth of anti-aircraft weapons, automatic rifles, grenade launchers, ammunition and other military equipment, the LTTE has set up its branches," it reported, adding, the expansion includes operations in Maryland, New York and New Jersey.

March 30: Prapa Thambithurai, a 45-year-old satellite dish installer who emigrated from Sri Lanka two decades ago and now living in a suburban duplex north of Toronto in Canada, is alleged to be a bagman for the LTTE. The RCMP arrested Thambithurai on March 14-night in New Westminster. Police seized more than $1,000 in cash as well as pledge forms, Thambithurai told the National Post in his first public comments since his arrest. The RCMP said in a press release that he was "targeting residents of the Lower Mainland of Tamil heritage to make cash donations to support the LTTE." Thambithurai was active in the Vancouver chapter of the World Tamil Movement, which is an important part of that financial pipeline, the RCMP stated. Members of the group collect "war taxes" from ethnic Tamils in Canada and send the money to the LTTE, police said.

March 17: The Royal Canadian Mountain Police said an Ontario man who was scheduled to appear in a Vancouver courtroom to face Canada's first terrorism financing charge was collecting money for the LTTE. Prapaharan Thambithurai is accused of collecting money from ethnic Tamils in B.C.'s Lower Mainland that was destined for the LTTE. Thambithurai a.k.a. Prapa was soliciting donations for the World Tamil Movement (WTM), which police say is the leading LTTE front organization in Canada, said Superintendent Lloyd Plante, head of B.C.'s counter-terrorism squad, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, adding, "There's no doubt he was collecting funds for the WTM, ultimately with the linkage to the LTTE."

March 16: Italian Police has closed the LTTE's illegal propaganda machinery, Euro Television channel, reports Daily News. The illegal TV channel transmission was closed from March 6. LTTE launched the Euro Television after the French Government banned on May 2007, the Tamil Television Network - TTN channel run by the outfit.

March 2: Sri Lankan authorities urged the British government to ban fund-raising activities of what they described as LTTE’s front organisations alleging that the money collected by these groups "ostensibly" for charitable purposes went into the "coffers" of the outfit. They said that although the LTTE was banned in Britain, a number of organisations claiming to be "charities" were working for it. "These funds directly go to the coffers of the insurgent group to wage war with the Sri Lankan government and spread violence among civilian populations," an unnamed spokesman of the Sri Lankan High Commission said. The call came after the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) organised a cultural show to raise funds for an educational project in Visvamadu in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan officials called the project an extension of the LTTE.

February 4: The Sri Lankan authorities claimed that two London-based LTTE militants were arrested in Canada on suspicion of stealing "thousands" of credit cards of British customers. "Toronto Police said two Londoners, Kirubakaran Selvanayagam Pillai (38) and Sethukavalar Saravanabhavan (35), connected with Tamil Tigers and arrested there may have stolen information of thousands of credit cards of U.K. customers," said Walter Jayawardhana, the Sri Lankan High Commission spokesman in London.

The pro-LTTE Tamil groups in Britain launched a campaign to highlight the "sufferings" of Tamils in Sri Lanka, with a protest outside Downing Street. Protesters carried banners and raised slogans demanding "justice" for Tamils in Sri Lanka. "Let us all unite together to save our relations, to ask for our rights," a leaflet distributed at the rally said. The protest, organised by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO), whose spokesman Suren Surendiran said, "The aim is to educate the second generation Tamils who live in the U.K. and the general public about the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka. We also intend having this exhibition in other major cities here in the U.K. and in Canada, Australia, United States of America and South Africa during the year." Meanwhile, condemning the protest Walter Jayawardhana described it as "LTTE propaganda". He expressed concern that although the LTTE was banned under Britain's terror laws its "front organisations" were operating freely.

January 25: Renegade LTTE leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias 'Colonel' Karuna was sentenced to nine-month imprisonment by a UK Court for identity fraud. He was arrested in London on November 2, 2007, for carrying an apparently genuine Sri Lankan diplomatic passport issued under a false name. Karuna told the Isleworth Crown Court in West London that he had received the false diplomatic passport from the Sri Lankan Government. He said Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse, who is also the brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, had arranged the documents for him. Karuna, who founded the Tamil Makkal Vidhuthalai Pullikal (TMVP), was sentenced to nine months in jail under the Identity Cards Act after he pleaded guilty.

January 22: A calendar apparently depicting the logo of the LTTE and the map of a separate state of "Tamil Eelam" was sold outside Hindu temples in London on January 1. The calendar, with a reddish sky and a rising sun in the background, depicts the map of Tamil Eelam and a gloriosa lily -- the 'official flower' of the LTTE, the Colombo Post reported. While the writing on top says Thamil Thai Naalkaati (Tamil mother calendar) 2008, the bottom portion states "History of the Tamils, world history and a calendar that reflects the religious and astrological matters relating to Tamils." The "Tamil Eelam" national calendars were publicly sold at the rate of five pounds to 10 pounds each, the report said.

January 16: Britain’s leading Tamil organisation, the British Tamils Forum, called for a boycott of Sri Lankan Airlines in a move to target the Sri Lankan economy as part of their campaign for a separate Tamil homeland. Tamils have been urged not to travel by Sri Lanka’s national carrier, which earns an estimated £12 million every year from the British Tamils travelling to Sri Lanka. "Traveling with Sri Lankan airlines is tantamount to paying the government of Sri Lanka to buy the weaponry with which to kill our people in their homeland," said Ivan Pedropillai, head of the Forum, at a press conference. The Forum also urged British tourists not to take holidays in Sri Lanka, arguing that the earnings from tourism "adds to Sri Lankan Government’s war chest." Pedropillai, however, sought to distance his group from the LTTE, saying while it shared the groups "political goals," it believed in struggle through legal and peaceful means.

January 10: A US District Court in Maryland sentenced a Sri Lankan to 57 months in prison and three years of supervised release for conspiracy to provide arms, ammunition and other military materiel to the LTTE. The sentence was imposed on Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, a Sri Lankan resident in the US.

2007

December 23: Activists of the LTTE destroyed the flag pole and the national flag at the Sri Lanka Embassy in Paris and caused some damage to the Embassy premises. The attack occurred hours before Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama arrived in Paris at the start of an official visit to Europe where he would engage in talks in Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt.

December 12: French Courts ordered a further remand custody of four months for 19 top LTTE leaders in France. They include the 14 arrested in Paris in April 2007 and five arrested in September 2007.

October 21: The Canadian Police have uncovered a major scam where the LTTE operatives tried to enter the Caribbean using expertly forged Western passports with the eventual aim of infiltrating the US and Canada. Several key members of the LTTE were among the more than 100 people arrested with fraudulent travel documents in the Caribbean, Jeff Johnston, senior liaison officer for the Caribbean of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the Barbados-based Sunday Sun. Concerns among security agencies have heightened as a result of identifying a highly sophisticated fraudulent passport ring operating out of Guyana. He said: "Not only are they producing fraudulent regional/Caribbean passports, but also Canadian, US and British documents… Those identified included people believed to be associated with the LTTE who were trying to make their way to Canada to raise funds for arms purchases."

October 9: The Victorian government in Australia has reportedly given thousands of dollars to an organisation accused of being a front of the LTTE. The Government awarded $2000 in two separate grants to the Eelam Tamil Association of Victoria to fund a dinner dance and to help with administrative expenses.

September 25: French Police arrested Ranjan, the second layer LTTE leader, who substituted for Parithi alias Nadarajah Mathienthiran, who was arrested on April 1 and being held in custody since then. He was arrested along with the Vennila gang members in the suburb of Paris. The report added that Ravi Manickam alias Oothai Ravi, the leader of the Vennila group and the key man entrusted by the LTTE to take care of the anti-LTTE Tamil groups in France was also arrested. Ravi is suspected of a number of mysterious murders and abduction of Tamil Diaspora in France.

September 24: The movement of two suspected LTTE cadres from Canada to the USA during a recent private visit to America by the Defence Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse reportedly sparked off a quick re-action from the US Federal Agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation which received information about the movement of LTTE operatives swiftly tracked down Rajapakse to provide him with security.

September 13: Three persons, Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, Sivarajah Yathavan, and Arumugam Rajeevan, were charged for using Tamil Coordinating Committee at Melbourne in Australia to raise funds for the LTTE. They reportedly appeared for the start of their committal hearing at Melbourne Magistrates' Court. Mark Dean S.C, the Commonwealth prosecutor, told the court that US $1.9 million was deposited into a bank account for the Tamil Coordinating Committee between 2001 and 2005. He alleged that US $1.2 million of that money was withdrawn in cash and used to purchase electronic equipment and other items for the LTTE. He said money provided to the LTTE was collected under the guise of donations for charitable projects and included money raised after the 2004 tsunami.

September 12: The Thailand police denied that the LTTE procurement and finance chief, Shanmugan Kumaran Pathmanadan a.k.a. KP, had been arrested in Bangkok on September 10. "I've checked with related police bureaux -- the Immigration Police, the Metropolitan Police and the Special Branch. There has been no report of a Tiger rebel arrested in Bangkok," national police spokesperson Lieutenant-General Ronnarong Youngyuen told Reuters, and added, "If we'd arrested him, we would have made good publicity out of it." Earlier, the Ministry of Defence Website in Sri Lanka had reported that, "Reliable sources from Thailand reveal that LTTE's chief for cross border terrorist activities, Kumaran Padmanadan, alias "KP" has been arrested in Bangkok yesterday ( September 10)."

September 11: The Sri Lankan government is awaiting official confirmation of the arrest of the LTTE procurement and finance chief, Shanmugan Kumaran Pathmanadan a.k.a. KP, in Bangkok on September 10. "We have only seen media reports about his arrest. We are yet to get confirmation," Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said. "If he has been arrested, it shows that the Sri Lankan government is succeeding in its efforts to get other countries to crackdown on the LTTE financial and arms procurement networks. Due to our intense efforts, 17 LTTE operatives were arrested in the US, 14 in France, three in Australia and two in the UK .Last week three LTTE operatives were extradited to Sri Lanka from Thailand, "he added.

September 10: The LTTE’s procurement and finance chief Shanmugan Kumaran Pathmanadan, also known as KP, was arrested in Thailand. KP who has obtained Thai citizenship runs the global network of LTTE offices and its weapons procurement, logistics and money laundering operations. He has been on Interpol's Most Wanted list for a number of years. He has also been implicated in several assassinations of political leaders. KP, a smuggler of arms and narcotics, operating with bank accounts opened in London, Frankfurt, Denmark, Athens and Australia was arrested in Bangkok.

September 2: LTTE cadres in France destroyed the flag pole and the national flag at the Sri Lanka Embassy and caused damage to the Embassy premises. The attack occurred hours before Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama arrived in Paris at the start of an official visit to Europe.

August 29: A US Senate Foreign Relations Committee report revealed that the government of Eritrea is providing direct military assistance to the LTTE. The Committee came to this conclusion after a study during 2006 in 20 countries of Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America on American military assistance to combat terrorism.

August 28: The Government launched an investigation into reports that LTTE cadres received ‘police’ training in the UK after the 2002 cease-fire agreement (CFA). The probe was ordered after revelations by an LTTE cadre who was arrested at a police roadblock in Trincomalee. Kalimuttu Vinodkumar, the 29-year suspect, told police he was among 12 LTTE cadres sent on a three-month training programme to Northern Ireland shortly after the CFA was signed. The course had been conducted by foreign instructors with the help of Tamil translators.

August 22: Tamil broadcasters in Australia are reportedly glorifying the LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and also raise funds. Often the radio stations in Melbourne and Sydney are open to outfit’s leaders in the Vanni who come on line regularly to plead for funds by glorifying the LTTE. These stations have a free run because the broadcasts are in Tamil and there is no one to monitor the daily pro-LTTE propaganda. In addition to raising funds and glorifying terrorism, the broadcasters hint at veiled threats to those who do not toe the LTTE line. Some of the leading radio stations are 3ZZZ in Melbourne, Inpath Tamil Vanoli, 24-hours radio in Sydney, Australian Tamil Broadcasting in Sydney and 3CR in Melbourne.

August 21: Three of the four Tamil suspects charged for the Oslo shootout on August 12 appeared in court. The fourth suspect is hospitalised after injuries sustained in the Oslo shootout. The Oslo court said the police could detain two of the suspects for four weeks and one suspect for two weeks.

August 16: A court in France has decided to extend the period of detention of all 14 LTTE suspects who were arrested on April 1, 2007, for a further period of four months till the first week of December 2007. The Sous-direction Anti Terroriste, the counter-terrorism agency in France, is in the process of framing charges against the suspects and according to the French law, if convicted they could be sentenced for a maximum period of 10-years in jail.

August 15: The government is working on the arrest of the LTTE-linked Singapore based businessman Charles Gnanakone with the help of the Interpol, said Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle. He said Gnanakone had openly admitted he had direct links with the LTTE.

August 14: Three top LTTE suspects who were under detention in Thailand for attempting to smuggle weapons to Sri Lanka in 2003 were deported to Sri Lanka. Sujit Gunapala (aged 27), Sasiljaran Teverajah (aged 27) and Satiepawan Arseawatap (aged 34) were arrested from the Ranong province in Thailand on May 12, 2003, along with 10 Glock pistols and three HK Mark 23 pistols. They pleaded guilty and in November 2003 received a five-year jail sentence. Following their arrest, 14 nationals of Thailand, including eight security force personnel, were also detained. They were believed to be part of the same smuggling network.

August 12: During a violent clash at Oslo in Norway between two rival factions of the LTTE, three LTTE cadres, 'Selika' Ranjan, Kannan and Kuhan, were injured. 'Selika' Ranjan later succumbed to his injuries. Clashes erupted between the supporters of Soosai, 'commander' of the Sea-Tigers (sea wing of the LTTE), and cadres from the intelligence wing of the outfit led by Pottu Amman at REMA1000 supermarket in Kaldbakken and ended outside a house at Gardsveien 2. According to police estimates, there where ten people involved in the incident.

July 25: Denying a Jane's Intelligence Review report that Cambodia was a source of weapons for the LTTE, the Cambodian Minister of Defence, Tea Banh, told the Cambodian media that the report is entirely baseless and there is no authentic evidence to prove it. "The weapons which belong to the Cambodian government are all in the country and nobody will export them to foreign countries," a news report quoted the Minister as saying.

July 23: According to reports, the LTTE is still getting weapons smuggled from Cambodia. Cambodia’s Interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak acknowledged that some weapons might still be getting to the LTTE, but said any smuggling would be small-scale. "There could be some bad people involved.... We would like information to lead us to the offenders," he said, and added, "We are victims of weapons, so we don't want people in other countries to suffer the same crisis."

July 18: The London-based Jane’s Intelligence Review said the LTTE has not only created one of the most sophisticated insurgencies in the world but also has an annual ‘profit margin’ of $200 to $300 million. The report details two overarching financial and procurement bodies that provide the main source of LTTE money, manpower and weapons: the Aiyanna Group and the Office of Overseas Purchases (nicknamed the KP Department). As per Jane’s, the Aiyanna Group functions as the group’s intelligence and operations body, likely to be responsible for monitoring and ensuring the organisation’s financial support and revenue streams, while the KP Department is most probably the procurement arm. The LTTE creates and staffs some charitable organisations, projecting its influence through this front to raise money from Tamil communities and, ultimately, convert the gains into arms, it reports. The report says the system works as an efficient way to move funds wherever investment or procurement opportunities arise while utilising a charitable façade’s tax-free status and legitimacy.

July 13: Protests have poured into the office of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, urging him to ban the Trafalgar Square rally organised by the LTTE on July 14. The Mayor has given permission with restrictions to conduct a meeting organised by Harrow Councilor Daya Idaikadar. The organisers have reportedly been told not try to propagate the programmes of the outfit and not to publicise the LTTE leader in the form of placards depicting his images.

July 10: An alleged member of the LTTE was arrested in Sydney (Australia) and charged with supporting a terrorist organization. Arumugam Rajeevan, aged 41, has been charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation, providing support or resources to a terrorist outfit and making an asset available to a proscribed entity, the report said. The Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty informed that Rajeevan was from Toongabbie in Sydney’s West.

July 8: The UK has placed the LTTE as the second most dangerous terrorist group after the al Qaeda. The UK already has put 44 groups on its list of terrorist organizations.

July 5: A British Court froze all bank accounts of the London LTTE leader A.C. Shanthan alias Krishnatha Kumar and of his wife. Britain's Anti-Terrorism Unit had filed 28 charges against Shanthan including extortion, operation of business enterprises, printing press and oil storages with ill-gotten wealth. Those employed at these enterprises were exclusively LTTE members, it was revealed. The money earned by these business ventures as at July 2 is reportedly 4 billion sterling pounds. The money thus earned had been utilised to purchase weapons from China and Israel to attack the Lankan Navy. Meanwhile, Goldan Lambert who was also arrested along with Shanthan is under house arrest. Lambert was arrested on charges of kidnapping for ransom and extortion. Another female LTTE cadre, identified as Pakyadevi, is reported to be absconding.

June 30: British Law Enforcement Authorities have requested their Sri Lankan counterparts for the full details of five Sri Lankan youth charged with kidnapping a Tamil youth, identified as Bavananthan Thirunavukarasu, employed at a filling station in Kent. All five youths, allegedly involved in fund raising activities for the LTTE, are in remand custody. British Police said there are at least five other suspects at large, who have either played a role in the installation of sophisticated credit card cloning equipment and the abduction and kidnapping of a youth named.

June 28: Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar alias Shanthan, president of the British Tamil Association, the high-ranking agent of the LTTE, and head of finance, Goldan Lambert, were charged by Scotland Yard under the Terrorism Act 2000 with providing support to the LTTE, which is a proscribed organization in the United Kingdom. Shanthan of Norbury town in South London faced five charges under the. Lambert, of South Croydon, was charged with assisting in the management of the Hyde Park event, knowing it was for the purposes of supporting LTTE, a proscribed organisation.

June 21: One of the prominent LTTE leaders in London, A.C. Shanthan, was arrested by the British police under the 2000 Terrorism Act. It is believed that he was detained in relation to an LTTE event held at Hyde Park in London on July 25, 2006.

June 11: French police have collected information regarding those LTTE supporters who traveled from France to Switzerland to participate in the protest march organised by the outfit on June 11. According to reports, police is monitoring activities of the outfit's supporters closely and is also preparing dossiers about LTTE supporters. The backlash against the outfit has been severe in France as 50 Tamils who worked in the French airports were discontinued from their positions once the police concluded that they were active LTTE supporters.

June 4: The head of the US branch of LTTE, Karunakaran Kandasamy, and four others pleaded not guilty to charges of assisting a foreign terrorist organization. Karunakaran is accused of heading the U.S. branch of the LTTE and of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund its activities. Meanwhile, the prosecutors said the LTTE rely on sympathetic expatriates to raise money, get weapons and spread propaganda, adding, to coordinate these activities, the outfit has have established branches in at least 12 countries, including an office in the New York borough of Queens.

June 1: The Singapore government assured that it will work closely with the Sri Lankan authorities to curb any possible use of Singaporean territory by the LTTE for its operations.

May 31: The LTTE is soon to be listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia. The move would rank the outfit alongside 19 other proscribed groups, including al Qaeda, Jemmah Islamiah and the Pakistan-based LeT.

May 17: Maldives coast guard opened fire on and sank a small vessel carrying suspected LTTE cadres after a 12-hour standoff at sea in southern territorial waters of Maldives. According to reports, four of the nine-member crew were killed, four others were arrested and one surrendered. Reports said that the vessel, which started off as a deep sea fishing trawler, was hijacked by the LTTE to do some gun-running for it. The boat was carrying guns and mortar bombs.

In a Quebec Court testimony that concluded on May 17, Kathiravelupillai Sithamparanathan, President of the World Tamil Movement's Montreal office, an organization that is suspected of funding the LTTE, has testified that he considers the LTTE as freedom fighters and he supports their activities that would benefit the people. But he denied that his organization has sent money to the outfit. He, however, acknowledged attending a 2004 workshop in Sri Lanka organized by the outfit. Asked about his view of LTTE chief Prabhakaran, he called him a freedom fighter who is organizing a struggle to win the rights of the people in Sri Lanka. Asked whether the World Tamil Movement supports the LTTE, he replied: "Actions that would benefit people, the right actions, yes."

May 16: A London Court was told that Senthuraj Thavapalasingham alias "Psycho" of Romford is the enforcer leading a gang of LTTE extortionists called "East Side Boys". Newham Council and Metropolitan Police told Stratford Magistrates Court that this gang has been working in Newham for two years. Chief Inspector Derrick Griffiths said, "To my knowledge there are around five Tamil gangs operating in London. This is a gang of about 30 young men aged between 15 and 32 who are paid by an organization called the LTTE. They were paid to extort money from local businessmen and residents. Their victims were paying anywhere between Pounds 5,000 and 25,000 a year. In one case a businessman was paying 25,000 a year for four years."

May 10: Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, a Sri Lankan citizen, pleaded guilty in a US court to conspiracy to provide material support to the LTTE and attempted export of arms and ammunition. According to the plea agreement, from April to September 29, 2006, Varatharasa conspired with Haji Subandi, Haniffa Osman and Erick Wotulo to export state-of-the-art firearms, machine guns and ammunition, surface to air missiles, night vision goggles and other military weapons to the LTTE.

National Post reported that the LTTE has been aggressively fundraising in Montreal using a sophisticated pre-authorized payment scheme and other methods to collect money from the city's 25,000-strong Tamil community.

May 6: A Hindu temple in south London, which reportedly raises nearly £500,000 each year, may have possible links to the LTTE in Sri Lanka. A BBC report said that the Armulmihu Hindu temple in Tooting "has had its assets frozen pending an investigation into alleged links with the UK banned Tamil Tigers."

May 5: A Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said that the LTTE has been procuring aircraft, arms, explosives and other technological devices from Australia for more than a decade.

May 1: Australian Police arrested two suspected LTTE cadres, Aruran Vinayagamoorthy (who had access to $5, 26,000 in two bank accounts between August 2001 and December 2005) and Sivarajah Yathavan, after raids in Sydney and Melbourne on the charges of providing material support and funneling money collected from donors in the garb of a Tsunami charity to the outfit.

April 28: Six Sri Lankans, including the prime accused Satrubarajah Shanamugarajah alias Ruby, connected to the LTTE were convicted for organized crime in Norway. More than 5.3 million Norwegian Kroner have reportedly been stolen in Norway's largest credit card scam which has links to LTTE cells in Canada, England, Germany and Sweden.

April 25: The ‘director’ of LTTE in New York, Karunakaran Kandasamy, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Queens on charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The group headed by him reportedly operated in the US "drawing on America’s financial resources and technological advances to further its war of terror in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. A FBI raid on Kandasamy’s office in Queens has revealed evidence that he raised millions of dollars for the Tamil Tigers through a front organization called the World Tamil Coordinating Committee."

April 8: French Police cancelled the permission granted earlier to hold a protest rally in Paris condemning the arrest of LTTE cadres on April 1. The LTTE-controlled business chamber, youth organization and women front of the outfit were involved in organizing the proposed protest rally.

April 5: A 55-year old Singapore national, Haniffa Bin Osman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to the LTTE, said US Attorney for the District of Maryland. Three others, including, Haji Subandi and Erick Wotulo, both Indonesian citizens, pleaded guilty to attempting to illegally export arms for the outfit.

A Court in Paris remanded 15 LTTE cadres and released four of them out of a total 19 arrested on charges of illegal fund-raising.

April 1: The leader of the LTTE’s France branch since 2003, Nadarajah Mathinthiran alias ‘Parathi’ and Thuraisamy Jeyamorthy alias ‘Jeya’, who are in charge of the money collection in France, were among 17 LTTE suspects arrested. During 2006, the LTTE reportedly collected more than six million euros where each Tamil family was forced to pay 2000 euros per year and shopkeepers were made to pay 6000 euros.

March 25: LTTE reportedly supplied forged passports to Ramzi Yousef who bombed the World Trade Center, counter terrorism expert Aaron Mannes said.

March 20: Falk Rovik, chief spokesperson of the Norwegians against Terrorism, said in Toronto that the LTTE have stolen hundreds of Norwegian passports and sold them to al Qaeda to earn money.

March 8: Haji Subandi, an international arms dealer from Indonesia, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Guam in USA to conspiring to export guns, surface-to-air missiles and other military hardware to LTTE.

January 30: The Interpol Headquarters in France issued a worldwide arrest warrant for the LTTE Sea-Tiger leader, Thillayampalam Sivanesan alias Soosai, identifying him as a fugitive wanted for prosecution consequent to the facts forwarded by the Central Investigation Department to Court.

January 19: Police in Chennai, capital of southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu, arrested G. Elango, a LTTE agent carrying a British passport, along with 28 ATM cards. Elango illegally withdrew over INR 30 lakh from the ATMs and later sent it to the UK through unauthorized channels. Elango, hailing from Middlesex, is reportedly a shareholder in 'Thamilini' -- a cash and carry grocery shops chain operated by the LTTE in UK.

2006

December 25: The LTTE releases the 25-member crew, including 13 Jordanians, 11 Egyptians and an Iraqi captain, of the captured Jordanian ship Farha 111, which was carrying rice from India to South Africa.

November 30: The Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, has promised the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake to choke the flow of weapons from his country to the LTTE, during the latter's visit to Cambodia. Hun Sen reportedly admitted that for the first time in 2005 arms were smuggled out of his country for terrorist activities in Sri Lanka, and assured Sri Lankan Prime Minister to trust Cambodia that "no more weapons would enter Sri Lanka."

November 1: A family of three, Sivarajah Yathavan, his wife Abirami Yathavan and, P. Senthuran, father-in-law of Yathavan, reportedly conduct LTTE operations in Victoria, Australia.

October 25: Switzerland authorities will not allow the LTTE to raise funds or carry out any campaign against the Government and people of Sri Lanka in Switzerland after the peace talks this time, said official sources.

October 4: Federal prosecutors at Baltimore in Indonesia announced that six men, who were charged with attempting to export weapons to Indonesia and to the LTTE, are facing additional charges.

September 26: A LTTE suspect, identified as Piratheepan Nadarajah, who faces extradition to the U.S. on terrorism charges is granted bail in Canada.

August 30: Indonesian police arrested 13 LTTE suspects during a recent raid in the southern Java coast. The suspects were reportedly moving to Australia.

Two more Sri Lankan men - bringing the total charged to seven – are arrested by the Toronto Police in connection with a massive fraud that police suspect may have affected thousands of Mississauga residents. Detectives are probing the trail of stolen cash to determine whether loot was sent to Sri Lanka for the LTTE.

August 29: Five accused Sri Lankan gang members are arrested in Canada in connection with a massive fraud scam that police suspect may have milked thousands of Mississauga residents. Detectives are probing the trail of stolen cash to determine whether loot was sent to Sri Lanka for the LTTE.

August 28: A British doctor, Murugesu Vinayagamoorthy alias Dr. Moorthy, a senior LTTE intermediary, is arrested from New York for aiding the LTTE by facilitating the purchase of American rockets and British submarine technology.

August 27: The Sri Lanka's High Commissioner in Canada, W.J.S. Karunaratne, states that the LTTE is collecting funds in Canada using various front organizations, despite the ban against them.

August 24: A LTTE operative in Canada, "Waterloo Suresh" Sriskandarajah, allegedly used student couriers to smuggle war-related items to the outfit. FBI documents said that he told the students to hide the contraband with "teddies and chocolates."

August 23: Chicago Tribune quoting law enforcement officials reports that the money for a trip to Sri Lanka in 2005 of a U.S. congressman, Danny Davis, and an aide allegedly came from the LTTE.

The LTTE reiterates that it has no connection with the eight persons arrested by the U.S. authorities on charges of attempting to mobilise military and material support for it.

Authorities in Thailand arrested three Sri Lankans, Asirvatham Sathyapavan, Thevarajah Sashiharan and U. G. Gunapala, who were procuring arms for the LTTE. They were arrested while trying to ship arms and ammunition, including a variety of pistols and 45,000 rounds of ammunition, to Mullaitivu.

Two Tamil Canadians, Ramanan Mylvaganam and Piratheepan Nadarajah, are arrested in an alleged conspiracy to buy weapons for the LTTE.

August 22-23: Two more Tamil Canadians, Ramanan Mylvaganam and Piratheepan Nadarajah, are arrested in an alleged conspiracy to buy weapons for the LTTE in Sri Lanka on August 22 and 23 respectively.

August 22: Thirteen suspects with close links to the LTTE, including "Waterloo" Suresh alias Suresh Skandarajah, are arrested from Buffalo, New York, San Jose, California, Seattle, Washington and Connecticut following the Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP) and FBI probe into allegations that LTTE sympathizers in North America tried to buy missiles and move terror funds.

August 1: Sweden announces the withdrawal of its monitors from the SLMM, joining Finland and Denmark who announced their withdrawal on July 28. The United States embassy in Colombo states that US authorities couldn't have prevented the Tamil sports festival in New York, as there was no evidence to indicate the organization behind this event had any links with the LTTE.

July 26: A person identified as Niranjan Claude Fabian, a member of the VVT, a Tamil gang active in the Toronto area, and described by Toronto Police in Canada as a gang leader and a "trained assassin" of the LTTE outfit is secretly deported to his native Sri Lanka after an eight-year court battle to stay in Canada.

July 19: Government authorities arrested four women suspected to be suicide bombers at Tissamaharama in the Hambantota district. The four are trained LTTE operatives, who were intending to carry out attacks in the south of the country. The LTTE is entrenched in Canada and uses a Toronto-based "front organization" called the World Tamil Movement (WTM) to raise money for arms, says a summary of an ongoing Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP) investigation.

The LTTE is entrenched in Canada and uses a Toronto-based "front organization" called the World Tamil Movement (WTM) to raise money for arms, says a summary of an ongoing RCMP investigation. The RCMP 58-page document refers to the WTM as "the Canadian arm" of the LTTE.

July 7: The house of a Norwegian journalist, Nina Johnsrud, is attacked with gunfire in Oslo. Nina, who works for the daily Dagsavisen had earlier written about the LTTE leader, Yogaraja Balasingham, rigging the last Oslo municipal election.

May 31: Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera informs that the LTTE funnels contribution through Malaysia and Singapore to buy weapons in Thailand and Cambodia.

May 25: Sri Lanka urges Gulf Arab states to ban the LTTE in their countries in order to block the funds to the outfit.

May 10: According to the Netherlands Minister of Justice, Donner, and Minister of Immigration, Verdonk, there are signs that the Tamil community is being intimidated by the LTTE to raise funds.

April 16: Canadian Police raids the office of the World Tamil Movement in Montreal, the first raid after the Canadian Government proscribed the LTTE as a terrorist group and seized computers, files, LTTE flags and other political documents.

April 10: Canada formally proscribes the LTTE as a terrorist group.

2003

November 11: Three Sri Lankan men suspected to be LTTE cadres are sentenced to five years in jail for arms smuggling by a court in the Thailand capital Bangkok.

2002

September 5: The LTTE is de-proscribed. The British High Commission in Colombo says, "We hope that the LTTE will indeed conclude that violence no longer has a part to play in resolving Sri Lanka's problems and that they will renounce terrorism". The LTTE continues to be banned in the UK.

2001

February 28: LTTE is proscribed in the United Kingdom, along with 20 other terrorist organisations, under the new Terrorism Act 2000 that came into force a few days earlier, on February 19.

 

 

 

 

 
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