Raj Rajaratnam case - allowed to proceed
by Manjula FERNANDO
A Federal Judge in New Jersey last week allowed to proceed a lawsuit
accusing the Wall Street hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and his
father of using a charitable front in the US to funnel millions of
dollars to the LTTE, the New Jersey Law journal reported.
According to the report, the suit concerns the Tamil Rehabilitation
Organization (TRO), a non-profit organisation the US Treasury Department
shut down in 2007 for funding the LTTE. The group has been classified as
a foreign terrorist organisation in the US since 1997 and as an
especially designated global terrorist organisation since 2001. The suit
was filed by more than two dozen Sri Lankans who claim to have got
injured or lost family members in five bombings carried out by the
Tigers in Sri Lanka in late 2007 and early 2008.
They alleged that Rajakumara (Raj) Rajaratnam, of New York City, and
his father, Jesuthasan Rajaratnam, of New Jersey, both U.S. citizens,
gave millions of dollars directly to TRO and also through the Rajaratnam
Family Foundation, a tax-exempt charity incorporated in Maryland in
2001.
Their money and money donated by others allegedly wound up in the
hands of TRO-Sri Lanka, a sister organisation that provided financial
support to the Tigers.
In addition, after the tsunami of December 26, 2004, Rajaratnam
started another charity, Tsunami Relief Inc., which gave $2 million to
TRO-Sri Lanka, the complaint says.
The plaintiffs describe the Rajaratnams as “members of the global
Tamil expatriate community who knowingly and purposefully helped fund
Tigers’ terror campaign and spread their propaganda.”
In 2007, the U.S. Department of State identified TRO in the U.S. as
one of the biggest sources of overseas donations to the Tigers and the
Rajaratnam Family as the largest private donor from the United States,
the report said quoting the Complaint.
Federal prosecutors and the FBI criminally charged Rajaratnam and
five others in October 2009 in a case they described as the biggest
hedge fund insider trading case ever and Rajaratnam is presently under
indictment. He has been released on bail but not allowed to travel.
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