TRO Chairman arrested and detained

Ranjith PADMASIRI

The Criminal Investigation Division (CID) informed the Colombo Magistrate's Courts yesterday that they were further detaining the Chairman and another member of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) under detention orders for questioning in their alleged involvement in raising funds for the LTTE terrorist organization.. The TRO, a non Governmental Organization is charged with raising funds for the LTTE in the guise of collecting monies to help welfare activities of the displaced civilians in the North.

The CID arrested the Chairman of the TRO, Velupillai Shivanadgar a resident of Velvetithurai in Vavuniya and another member of the organization, Eliyathambi Threshakumaran, a resident of Batticaloa at Katunayake Air Port.

Earlier Notices issued by Courts requesting the two arrested and five others to appear in Courts had been pending as they had not presented themselves as requested and had gone into hiding.

When the case alleging the involvement of the accused in raising funds for a terrorist organization which was working against the interests of an elected Government was taken before Additional Magistrate Praharsha Ranasinghe, the CID sought permission to add Balasubramanium Sri Skandaraja and Homolius Prabhakaran as accused in the case.

The Additional Magistrate on the occasion gave approval to add the above named two as accused after considering relevant details in the case filed by Nevil Fernando of the Central Bank.

When the case was taken before Courts only one suspect Sinnaiya Shanthalingam who is on bail appeared before Courts out of ten listed suspects.

The CID on the occasion informed Courts that the first accused TRO Chairman V.Shivanadgar had been arrested in Vavuniya and Threshakumar was arrested at Katunayake Air Port on his return to the country from Qatar.

The CID also informed that the other accused namely Murugesu Shanmugaraj, Kanagalingam Premarasi, K.Kaneshalingam, Eliyathambi Nadaraja, K.Sukumaran, B, Skandaraja, and H.Prabhakaran had not heeded the call to appear in Courts.

The CID further requested the Courts to re issue notices to the above accused to appear in Courts.

The two arrested suspects have been further detained for questioning under the detention orders issued by the Defence Secretary and the other accused are not present in their known residences, the CID informed.

After considering the request, Additional Magistrate Praharsha Ranasinghe ordered the re-issue of notices to the seven absconding suspects to appear in Courts on July 28. The case is to be taken before courts again on the same date.