"LTTE stole 130,000 Norwegian Passports and sold some of them to Al
Qaeda" - Bernard Goonetileke
By Walter Jayawardhana
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Bernard Goonetileke said that the LTTE had
employed a corrupt police officer to steal the passports for them
and when it sold the passports they also sold them to an Al Qaeda
group in Algeria. |
Bernard Goonetileke, the Sri Lankan Ambassador in
Washington DC interviewed by the Washington Post Radio Thursday said the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) operatives have stolen 130,00
Norwegian passports and sold them to the highest bidders including the
terrorists of Al Qaeda.
"One of them surfaced with 700 of the stolen passports
in Thailand and got caught to the police," the Ambassador told J.J.
Green, the National Security Affairs Correspondent of the Washington
Post Radio.
Green said due to the easy access of European Union
citizens to the United States this could make a real risk for even this
country.
The Radio Station introduced the LTTE as the assassins
of the former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and friends of the Al
Qaeda terrorists of the Middle Eastern notoriety.
Goonetileke said that the LTTE had employed a corrupt
police officer to steal the passports for them and when it sold the
passports they also sold them to an Al Qaeda group in Algeria.
The Sri Lankan ambassador said the LTTE was banned in
India in 1991 and the second country they were banned was the United
States in 1997, about a decade ago. He said when these countries banned
them they simply did it because they realized that the Tamil Tigers
behavior was really dangerous to the world. He said the proscription of
the group was thereafter followed by Canada and the 27 member European
Union.
Answering Green Goonetileke reminded the grave
terrorist acts they committed included the assassination of Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India and said the pioneering acts of terrorism
the LTTE gave to the world of terror included the devastating C-4
explosives laden suicide jackets currently used by the Middle Eastern
terrorists. The Sri Lankan ambassador said after the USS Cole was
blasted the Sea Tigers head Susai had boasted that it was their suicide
boat method the Middle Eastern terrorists had copied. In fact,
Goonetileke said the LTTE had done similar acts by blasting a Sri lanka
Navy vessel carrying sailors and in blasting a Chinese fishing vessel in
2000. Their latest pioneering act of terrorism is to fly low flying
aircraft and bomb places, the ambassador said. Green: How did they
manage to do that?
Goonetileke: It is nothing amazing. Once a small
Cessna was flown by a German youth to the Red Square in Moscow with all
its security and radar.
Green: How do they manage to buy all these aircraft
and other weapons?
Goonetileke: If you have the resources there is no
shortages of planes and weapons in the black market.
The Sri Lankan ambassador during the 30 minute
interview said there were 800,000 estimated Sri Lankan Tamils spread in
North America, Australia and Europe. He said money is being bilked from
them using sophisticated methods of extortion. He said the terrorist
group has forcibly taken over places of worship like Hindu temples to
steal money given for charity. Goonetileke said narcotic sales, credit
cards frauds of large scale, and owning businesses and shipping lines
are some other methods they used to earn money. He said they maintained
bank accounts like those of the Bhumiputra Bank of Malaysia to siphon
money.
He said it was true the LTTE signed a Ceasefire
Agreement in 2002 but soon after the agreement was signed they started
showing the insincerity by killing Tamil opponents and continuing with
child abductions and assassinating some members of the security forces.
They started sitting down for negotiations and thereafter left the
negotiating table showing that they would never be satisfied with
anything else other than a separate state.
He said they kept on raising funds using front
organization because of the proscriptions in the Western countries. He
said when the pseudo charity called Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO)
was discovered by the Commissioner of Charity in UK they restarted it
under the name White Pigeon. When White Pigeon was caught they
transferred 500,000 sterling pounds to another one called International
Tamil Rehabilitation Organization(ITRO). Then they were transferred to
World Tamil Movement. He said it was always a name game to siphon off
charity money for terror.
Goonetileke admitted that that Sri Lanka government
and the US government exchange information about the terrorist
organizations.
Goonetileke said mainly two teams related to the LTTE
have already got caught trying to buy weapons and influence in the US
and one team has already pleaded guilty. In those sting operations one
LTTE team offered one million dollars as bribes to US officials, hoping
to get the ban on the group lifted, as one of the expectations.
In the attempt to buy surface to air missiles and
other military equipment to down airplanes 70,000 dollars exchanged
hands as initial payments to undercover agents. Those figures would
indicate, Goonetileke said, the kind of money the terrorist group was
able to spend.
Answering questions the ambassador said due to the
focus was mainly on Islamic terrorists the resources may have been
limited in the past to catch the LTTE in the US. But he said he hoped
the government would use resources as much as possible to bring them to
books since it was one sure way of quelling the terrorism back at home.
Courtesy - Asian Tribune
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