Kumaran Pathmanathan, or ‘KP,’ who was wanted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and rehabilitated after his dramatic arrest and extradition from Malaysia by the previous government, is said to be missing from Sri Lanka. “We heard he escaped through the airport’s VIP lounge. We are investigating,” said Rajitha Senaratne, a top aide of newly elected President Maithripala Sirisena.
KP headed the arms procurement wing and ‘international secretariat’ of the LTTE and was for long on Interpol’s wanted list before his arrest months after the war ended in May 2009 in an operation in Kuala Lumpur.
The Rajapaksa government brought him back to Sri Lanka where he was kept in detention in Colombo until 2012 and then allowed to go to Killinochchi.
But rumours that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the powerful Defence Secretary in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government and the former President's brother, had also fled the country, were not true, another leader in the new ruling coalition said.
“He is in the country,” said United National Party leader Ravi Karunanayake.
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