Four Tamil gangsters in London sentenced to jail

Walter Jayawardhana

Three Sri Lankan Tamil gangsters of London were sentenced to 17 years in jail for murder and another of the same gang was sentenced to 14 years in jail for the same offence by a criminal court of the Old Bailey for murdering another Tamil man by stabbing him 31 times.

In this case six members of the Tamil gang were sentenced for offences like murder of Pirabakaran Kannan in Upper Tooting Road and lesser crime of grievous bodily harm(GBH) and actual bodily harm(ABH) , which is lesser than GBH, to members of a Tamil Gang to which the murder victim did not even belong.

Witnesses said in the courts that Kannan was heard shouting ”It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me” shortly before he was brutally set upon and killed by the four gang members. The seemingly uninvolved victim happened to be there when two rival Sri Lankan Tamil gangs clashed.

The sentencing came July 7, five days before the banned terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is going to hold their Pongu Thamil festival in London focused on fund raising.

The police said gangs of violent Sri Lankan Tamil men in South London area, where illegal fund raising activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are quite rampant are “constantly tooled up” and “ready to go”, for such crimes. ]

But there is no direct evidence that the gangs are linked with the LTTE. There is some connection with LTTE controlled businesses and Tamil violent gangs, many have alleged.

Detective Inspector Anthony McKeowan calling the violence the convicts displayed was ferocious said, “The attack on Pirabaskaran Kannan was violent and merciless.

He sustained 31 stab and slash injuries at the back of a fast food restaurant in Tooting, and died shortly after in hospital. The two friends who were with him at the time suffered lesser injuries, but have obviously been affected by events of that night.