Malaysia arrest four LTTE operatives suspected of terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka
Saturday, 5 July 2014 02:01
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Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Police have arrested four suspected Tamil Tigers alleged of trying to revive Sri Lanka’s defeated terrorist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam using Malaysia as a base.
The four suspects are believed to be of senior leaders in the terrorist organization now defunct in Sri Lanka but active overseas and trying to make a comeback.
The men, arrested by the Malaysian Police yesterday in a series of anti-terrorism operations in Klang Valley, are suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, Reuters reported.
One of the suspects was wanted for his involvement in the assassination attempt on the then Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga 1999, the Malaysian police said.
The four are being detained by the Special Branch’s Counter-Terrorism Division (SB-CTD).
Police Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar told Reuters that the suspects “were planning to reactivate the group by making Malaysia as their base of operations”. Some activists, he said, had exploited their status as refugees to pursue illegal activities. According to the Malaysian police one of the suspects was an explosives expert, and another is alleged of facilitating planned attacks on Sri Lankan consulates in India. The fourth man is accused of gathering intelligence for the group.
The police confiscated counterfeit passports of multiple nations, counterfeit rubber stamps of the Immigration Department and foreign embassies and other documents, Khalid said.
“Police believed that one of three other suspects, who holds a United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) identity card, is a LTTE bomb expert,” Khalid was quoted as saying.
The arrest comes after Malaysia’s Counter Terrorism Division of the police’s Special Branch on May 15 arrested three suspected LTTE operatives and deported them to Sri Lanka. Following the arrest in May the Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division of Malaysian police hunted down more suspected members of LTTE who are believed to be hiding in the country.
