LTTE's No. 3 arms buyer before NY Court

By Walter Jayawardhana

Pradeepan Thavarajah, the number three man in the procurement of arms in the terrorist group , Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who was brought before a US Federal Courts judge in New York pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him of trying to send surface to air missiles to Sri Lanka.

Handed over by the Indonesian authorities the 32 year old Tamil Tiger arms buyer was brought to New York escorted by FBI officials.

Robert Nordoza, spokesman for the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said Pratheepan Thavarajah was being held without bail and will reappear before US District Judge Raymond Deane in New York's Brooklyn Federal Court, January 18.

He is to face a fifteen year jail term for trying to smuggle out weapons from the United States to his home country, Sri Lanka.

Thavarajah was arrested by the Indonesian police when he was trying to board a plane to Malaysia at Soekarno-Hatta Air port. He was allegedly meeting somem Indonesian arms dealers in Indonesia. He is allegedly working very closely under another fugitive, the main arms dealer Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP who is also wanted by the FBI. When arrested he was in possession of passports belonging to many countries.

Indonesian officials said Pradeepan was handed over to the FBI agents Wednesday. Since his arrest January 4 the Indonesian officials were extensively questioning Pradeepan about places he visited in Indonesia and people whom he met since he arrived.

The US Attorney's office sources said the case is connected to the arrest of more than a dozen people last August across the United States following a sting operation spanning more than 10 countries that probed support of the Liberation Tigers of Tamel Eelam (LTTE). No trial dates have been set for any of the suspects, Nardoza said.

The rebel group, which has fought for two decades for a mono-ethnic Tamil separate state, was designated by the United States in 1997 as a foreign terrorist organization.

The suspects travelled between Canada, the United States and Britain and are accused of agreeing to buy military equipment including shoulder-held surface missiles to shoot down Sri Lankan Kfir military jets, according to a court document.