Italy recognises danger posed by terrorists - Envoy

ROME: Italy recognised the dangerous potential of terrorists by arresting those with alleged links to the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam, 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 Tigers.

Italian authorities in June arrested 28 suspected Tiger 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. “It is an organisation against civilisation and democracy.

“The Italians realised this and prosecuted those involved.” But the ambassador stressed that every Tamil was not a terrorist or a Tiger sympathiser.

“The entire Tamil population are not or do not support the Tigers but they have money extorted by agents,” he said. “It is nothing but extortion when people don’t want to contribute.”

Speaking about the Mumbai terrorist attacks the ambassador said Sri Lanka and India needed to strengthen cooperation to fight terrorism and work with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh to protect South Asia from extremists.

He said India had underestimated the risks posed by terrorists and were unprepared for an attack of this scale.