Blow to LTTE fundraising overseas:

Canada confiscates all WTM funds, assets

The Federal Court of Canada has ruled that the World Tamil Movement of Ontario and the World Tamil Movement of Quebec should forfeit all their belongings to the Canadian Government.

In a move seen as a huge blow to LTTE activities in Canada, the Court ruled WTM property was “owned or controlled by a terrorist organisation” and therefore had to be forfeited, Canadian media reported.

The verdict marks the official end of the WTM in Canada, which was formed in 1986 and became closely aligned with the LTTE’s bloody campaign for a separate State in Sri Lanka. “In Canada, the WTM is the main front organisation for the LTTE,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Corporal Steve Dubreuil wrote in an affidavit.

“We view this as a very positive ending in the sense that we did disrupt activities of terrorist financing in Canada, so that’s important to us,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud said.

“This decision by the Federal Court confirms that our efforts to disrupt terrorist activity in Canada are working,” said Christopher McCluskey, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. “We applaud this decision.” Although the WTM has ceased to function, Assistant Comm. Michaud, head of National Security Criminal Investigations, said the Tigers are still a “group of interest” for RCMP counter-terrorism investigators.

“They do remain a focus because we do have concerns as to if they’re going to regroup and ... if they do, how are they going to do it. Are they going to be going through violence or through political influence?”

There have been a number of reports that the LTTE was trying to regroup in Canada following their defeat in Sri Lanka in May 2009.

“We don’t know how far advanced it is, but their intent is pretty clear — to set up a base-in-exile here for the leadership. Some leadership is already here,” a well-placed federal government official told the Ottawa Citizen a few days ago.

The warning accompanied a report late last week to senior government officials revealing that two Southeast Asian smuggling syndicates are arranging the launch of two more ship-loads of migrants to British Columbia in the coming weeks. The boats are expected to carry as many as 50 former LTTE leaders and cadres, according to intelligence estimates.

Neither the Ontario nor Quebec World Tamil Movement branches contested the forfeiture of their property. The court orders make the Canadian Government the new owner of the WTM headquarters building in Montreal, several bank accounts, cash, and propaganda items, many of them bearing the emblem of the LTTE. The list of items seized by police includes boxes of LTTE flags, 20 t-shirts with the LTTE logo, 67 posters of LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham, five garbage bags with the LTTE logo and calendars, watches and posters featuring images of Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The court directed the materials were “to be disposed of as the Attorney General directs or otherwise dealt with in accordance with the law.”

The investigation on LTTE activity in Canada began in 2002, when the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in Ontario launched what it called Project Osaluki. The following year, a similar probe called Project Crible began in Montreal. The Canada Border Services Agency and Royal Thai Police Force were also involved. Police kept WTM activists under surveillance as they organized rallies in Canadian cities and travelled to Sri Lanka to meet the Tiger leadership. Some of the activists were photographed holding heavy weapons. In 2006, police raided the WTM offices in Toronto and Montreal, hauling away paraphernalia and documentation. It took years to translate and analyze the seized evidence.

A forensic audit found that the WTM was running a pre-authorized payment program that withdrew monthly sums from the bank accounts of Canadians in the Tamil Diaspora. The WTM took in up to $763,000 a year using the scheme. Most of the donors took part voluntarily, but police also interviewed witnesses who said they were coerced or pressured into participating.