Rajaratnam case:

Case very strong, say lawyers

Walter JAYAWARDHANA

The American Lawyer's magazine the Litigation Daily website recently published an interview on the case in which Sri Lankan victims of terrorism sued the alleged share market swindler Raj Rajaratnam for unspecified damages charging him and his father for donating millions to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Michael Elsner of the Plaintiff firm Motley Rice said in the interview:

"We think the case is very strong. The filing of the complaint is the culmination of a year's worth of investigation. We think that we've uncovered evidence that Rajaratnam made payments to the Tiger terrorist organization."

Elsner also said: "We were asked by some terrorism victims in Sri Lanka if we would investigate potential financiers of the (Tigers) from the United States.

So we began to investigate who in the US was providing this funding. We found a State Department cable that showed that (Rajaratnam) had provided millions to the LTO (the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization), which channelled those funds to the Tigers. We also gathered evidence from financial transactions that (Rajaratnam) had made in the public record."