US convicts Singaporean in Tiger arms plot
JoAnne Allen
A federal jury in Baltimore has convicted a Singapore national of
conspiring to provide weapons to LTTE operating in Sri Lanka, the U.S.
Justice Department said Monday.
Balraj Naidu, 48, was charged in a conspiracy to provide material
support to the LTTE designated in 1997 by the U.S. Department of State
as a foreign terrorist organization.
According to evidence presented at his trial, Naidu and four
co-conspirators arranged to buy some 28 tons of U.S.-made weapons and
ammunition from an undercover business in Maryland.
Tiger representatives made a $250,000 down-payment on the $900,000
weapons deal with the bogus company in the summer of 2006, the Justice
Department said.
Naidu’s partners were arrested in Sept. 2006, after inspecting the
weapons that had been delivered to Guam and making another payment of
$450,000 to the undercover business, the Justice Department said. Naidu
was arrested after a further investigation, it said.
US officials said the group also had tried to buy weapons from China,
Thailand, North Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia for the LTTE to be
used against Sri Lankan government forces. Naidu faces a maximum
sentence of 15 years in prison.
The co-conspirators: Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, 40, of Sri Lanka;
Haji Subandi, 73, and retired Indonesian Marine Corps General Erick
Wotulo, 62, both Indonesians; and Haniffa Bin Osman, 59, of Singapore,
all pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 57 months, 37 months, 30 months
and 37 months in prison, respectively.
The U.S. designation as a foreign terrorist organization barred the
group from legally raising money or buying operational equipment in the
United States. Sri Lanka’s military defeated the LTTE in May 2009 after
an insurgency that lasted more than 30 years. WASHINGTON, Reuters
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