Canadian pleads guilty to helping LTTE

A Canadian has pleaded guilty in a New York court to plotting to supply material to a "foreign terrorist organization," according to the FBI.

Ramanan Mylvaganam, 35, was extradited three years ago to the United States - where he lived previously - when he was charged with trying to purchase equipment to send to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, named as a terrorist group by both Canada and the US.

"Material support here for foreign terrorist organizations can have lethal consequences. That is why the FBI takes seriously the responsibility to prevent it and [we] do all we can to protect the safety of people around the globe," FBI assistant director Janice Fedarcyk said in a statement.

Mylvaganam is a computer engineer from Mississauga, Ont, and served on the executive of the University of Waterloo's Tamil association while he was a student.

He was arrested in Toronto in 2006 with two other Canadians, Piratheepan Nadarajah and Suresh Sriskandarajah, following a joint FBI-RCMP investigation called Project O-Needle.

Sriskandarajah, also know as Waterloo Suresh, was listed on the same indictment as Mylvaganam, but neither Sriskandarajah nor Nadarajah have pleaded guilty.

Mylvaganam pleaded guilty on Wednesday to plotting to buy about $22,000 of submarine design software from a UK company in 2006, as well as helping another person purchase electronics. He also tried to purchase night-vision goggles from an unnamed company in BC. He told the company that the equipment was for a university project. Prosecutors say the material were to be sent to the LTTE

Mylvaganam will face up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced in May. Courtesy: The Vancouver Sun