LTTE seeks legal loopholes on foreign soil

by Manjula Fernando

The LTTE is now reorganising to seek legitimacy on foreign soil through loopholes in their legal systems with the same ruthlessness and deceptiveness it operated in Sri Lanka in the post 2009 phase, International Terrorism Expert Rohan Gunaratna said.

Commenting on the recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that may unfreeze LTTE assets in the EU, he said LTTE groups are planning similar cases in Canada, US, UK, and India where the LTTE is still blacklisted.

“Unless the Europeans respond, other terrorist groups will also follow in the LTTE footsteps”, he said.

Prof. Gunaratna said the EU ban in 2006 sent an unequivocal message to LTTE supporters that Europe will not tolerate terrorist fund raising and the LTTE fund-raising though extortion diminished with the ban although the LTTE still operated through various fronts.

Many Tamils were happy with the ban as they saved money for the first time. One of the reasons why LTTE influence and power declined globally was the EU ban.

The LTTE approaches are not limited to lobbying politicians and human rights organisations but also extends to identifying the gaps and loopholes in the existing legal framework with the aim of penetrating them.

The Sri Lankan government has identified LTTE attempts to fight by using foreign courts of law. He said it was unfortunate that a substantive assessment on the classification of the LTTE as a terrorist group had not been done in the course of the three-year long case which cited the LTTE as the aggrieved party and the EU backed by the UK, Netherlands and the European Commission as the defence. The ruling will come into effect in two months if counter action is not taken by the European Council to rectify procedural shortcomings in continuing the LTTE ban.

Thursday’s ruling by the ECJ said to do away with the measures restricting the LTTE activities as a terrorist organisation, which includes the freezing of its assets in the EU, on the grounds that the re-imposition of the LTTE ban had been done without a proper individual re-assessment of the LTTE as a terrorist group.

The Council has been granted two months to appeal against the ruling.