EU steps up anti-LTTE action

FRANCE: The US action comes in the wake of the arrest of 17 Tiger suspects, including one French national, in Paris on April 1 after a probe lasting more than one year.

The charges include extortion of money from the Tamil diaspora in France to finance the LTTE’s terrorist activities in Sri Lanka.

The investigation had been carried out with bilateral co-operation at operational level with relevant departments in USA, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Italy, UK, the Netherlands and Sri Lanka.

The leader of the LTTE’s French branch since 2003, Nadarajah Mathinthiran alias ‘Parathi’ and Thuraisamy Jeyamorthy alias ‘Jeya’ are in charge of the money collections in France. Both were among those arrested.

Investigations have revealed a vast network of local representatives with whom they were working to collect money.

The LTTE had deployed ‘collectors’ under the supervision of local leaders. Whose only activity is to extort money and who were allowed 20 per cent of the sums collected as their ‘salary’.

The arrest had been preceded by raids conducted on LTTE establishments including the Tamil co-odinating Committee office (CCTF) and the TRO office in Paris, the humanitarian cover of the LTTE and an important source of funds for the organisation.

The TTN office, a leading Tamil shop (Makkal Kadai) and Amman Kovil in Paris had also been checked.

The arrested Tiger activists are charged with running for several years a vast operation of financial extortion among the Tamil diaspora in France.

During 2006, the LTTE has 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.

The investigation highlights the terror prevalent among the Tamil diaspora due to the LTTE’s harsh methods, and how it exerts violence on families of the diaspora back in Sri Lanka for nonpayment of contributions abroad, often amounting to assassination or confiscation of possessions and properties.

The transfer of the funds collected in France are sometimes physically carried in cash by ‘suitcase carriers’ usually to Switzerland to avoid bank records.