LTTE’s Canadian Sympathizers Jailed in USA

By Animesh Roul

Two Tamil sympathizers (Canadian of Sri Lankan origin) of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), have been sentenced to prison terms in the United States on January 22. In 2009, both, Nadarasa Yogarasa (a.k.a Yoga) and Sathajhan Sarachandran (a.k.a. Satha) had pleaded guilty to providing material support to the LTTE. A New York court has sentenced these two for 14 years and 26 years in prison respectively in connection with their attempt to purchase missiles and Assault rifles for LTTE.

Both were arrested, along with other two accomplices way back in August 2006 during a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undercover sting operation. FBI nabbed them after they had agreed to a shipment of 10 surface-to-air missiles(SAMs), ten missile launchers, and 500 AK-47s. Two of their accomplices Suhil Sabaratnam and Thiruthanikan, also Canadian Tamils, pleaded guilty to the same charges and awaiting court sentence.

LTTE designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in the US in 1997.

For the PRESS RELEASE:

Excerpt

On August 19, 2006, Sarachandran, Yogarasa and two co-defendants were arrested on Long Island after engaging in negotiations with an undercover FBI agent to purchase and export 20 SA-18 heat-seeking missiles, ten missile launchers, 500 AK-47s, and other military equipment for the LTTE. The defendants were acting at the direction of senior LTTE leadership in Sri Lanka, including Pottu Amman, the LTTE’s chief of intelligence and procurement and the right-hand man to LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakharan. The LTTE intended to use the SA-18 missiles to shoot down Kfir aircraft used by the Sri Lankan military.

The LTTE was founded in 1976 and uses illegal methods to raise money, acquire weapons and technology, and publicize its cause of establishing an independent Tamil state in northern Sri Lanka. The LTTE began its armed conflict against the Sri Lankan government in 1983, and utilizes a guerrilla strategy that often includes acts of terrorism. With an army of several thousand combatants, the LTTE has, until recently, controlled most of the northern and eastern coastal areas of Sri Lanka. Over the past 17 years, the LTTE has conducted approximately 200 suicide bombings, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of victims, and carried out numerous political assassinations, including the May 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the 1993 assassination of the President of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa, the July 1999 assassination of Neelan Thiruchelvam, a member of the Sri Lankan parliament, the June 2000 assassination of C.V. Goonaratne, the Sri Lankan Industry Minister, the August 2006 assassination of the Sri Lankan government’s peace secretariat, Ketheshwaran Loganathan, the January 2008 assassination of Sri Lankan Minister for Nation Building, D.M. Dassanayake, and the April 2008 assassination of Sri Lankan Highways Minister, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle.