Canadian Police scrutinise LTTE papers seized in raid

CANADA: Police have begun to analyze the documents they seized at the office of the world Tamil movement in Montreal. The office was raided last week.

Police moved in just two days after the Stephen Harper government added the Tamil Tigers to Canada's list of banned terrorist organizations.

Members of the integrated national security enforcement team recovered 10 boxes of documents, and information from computers, according to RCMP Cpl. Sylvain L'Heureux.

"When there's searches like that, the documents have to be looked over, and whatever is needed for the investigation, and the rest will be returned to the organization. It's just a normal investigation," he said.

L'Heureux can't comment on the timing of the raid, but said the search warrant covers a period of nearly three years. National security investigators told the judge who authorized the warrant they had reasonable grounds for believing the world Tamil organization is involved in criminal organization activities on behalf of the Tigers.

Sri Lanka Investigators believe people were participating in, facilitating and financing terrorist activity. Among the documents police were looking for:

* Bank records.

* Pre-authorized payment information.

* Donor lists.

* Phone bills.

* Correspondence between Tigers in Sri Lanka and world Tamil movement members in Montreal.

* Flags.

* Calendars.

* Clothing with the Tiger logo.

* Both used and unused lottery tickets sold to people who attended events in Montreal in support of the Tigers.

The national security investigation is ongoing; it's too soon to talk about possible arrests, L'Heureux said. (CBC News)

Meanwhile, a charity suspected of raising money in Australia to fund terrorist attacks by the Tigers in Sri Lanka has suspended hundreds of thousands of dollars in overseas donations amid concern they may be breaching federal anti-terrorism laws.

Months after being raided by the Australian Federal Police, the Tamil Coordinating Committee has sought legal advice about whether the donations, some of which were earmarked for victims of the 2004 tsunami, breached Australia's tough new anti-terrorism financing laws.

Terrorism expert Clive Williams told The Australian that police believe Tamil sympathisers in Australia had sent more than $3 million to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam between April 2003 and November last year.

In a letter to donors, obtained by The Australian, the TCC revealed that all payments had been stopped until internal investigators had checked that they were lawful.

AFP agents raided the Sydney home of a Tamil Sri Lankan, suspected of having links to the Tamil Tigers, a week after similar raids in Melbourne.

In the Sydney raid, police targeted a member of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, a charity that collected $1.1 million in donations following the Boxing Day tsunami.

The moves come amid growing concerns about the LTTE's activities in Australia, including death threats by its hit squad, the Ellalan Padai, against a Sydney journalist. The Ellalan Padai, an arm of the LTTE that has been blamed for dozens of murders in Sri Lanka, had reportedly made the threats against journalist Selliah Nagarajah in leaflets handed out at a Hindu community meeting in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh.

(The Australian)