Four suspected Tamil Tigers, including a man allegedly involved in the 1999 assassination attempt on the then Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, have been arrested here for trying to revive the LTTE and making Malaysia a base for its operations.
The four suspected members of the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were arrested in a series of anti-terrorism operations in Klang Valley on Thursday, police said on Friday.
The men, believed to be senior ranking members of the now defunct terror organisation, were detained by Special Branch’s Counter-Terrorism Division (SB-CTD) operatives.
The men were believed to be trying to revive the LTTE and make Malaysia a base for its operations, the New Strait Times reported.
Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said the suspects include a man wanted for his alleged involvement in the attempted assassination of the then Sri Lankan president Kumaratunga in 1999.
She lost vision in her right eye in the assassination attempt by the Tamil Tigers at her final election rally at Colombo Town Hall premises on December 18, 1999.
“Police believed that one of three other suspects, who holds a United Nations’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) identity card, is a LTTE bomb expert,” Abu Bakar was quoted as saying.
“Another suspect was identified as an accomplice to another suspect, whom SB-CTD arrested on May 14 for involvement in a plan to attack foreign consulates in Chennai and Bangalore,” he said.
“The man was also involved in forging travel documents and student passes, and in human trafficking activities,” Mr. Khalid said in a statement.
He said the police also confiscated a cache of counterfeit passports of multiple nations, as well as counterfeited rubber stamps of the Immigration Department and foreign embassies during the operations.
The fourth suspect was alleged to be responsible in gathering intelligence for LTTE’s attacks.
The arrests come after three Sri Lankans, including two refugees, were deported in May amid a crackdown on suspected militants.
The LTTE was defeated in a military campaign in 2009, ending a nearly three decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka.
