KP not exonerated says AG

by P.K. Balachandran

Sri Lanka's Attorney General Y.J.W.Wijayatilake has clarified that the former LTTE international wing leader, Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP, has not been exonerated of charges of terrorism. But investigations into 46 of the 193 cases against him had revealed that he had no role to play in those acts of terrorism, Wijayatilake added.

In a statement published in the Daily News, Wijayatilake said in a Writ Application filed in the Court of Appeal, 193 cases of terrorism in which KP was allegedly involved were cited. Out of these 193 cases, 46 had been investigated and no evidence was found to implicate KP in them. This was told to the court. Since there were many cases to be investigated, the Attorney General's office did not say that KP had been "exonerated," Wijayatilake said.

Earlier, in 2012, KP told Canada-based journalist D.B.S.Jeyaraj that he was "interviewed" by the Indian Central Bureau Investigation twice, in 2010 and 2011 at the Defense Ministry in Colombo.

"The first meeting was specially about the Rajiv murder and the second one a more general discussion on political developments connected to the LTTE," KP said.

"The CBI wanted to know whether I had any prior knowledge about the killing. The girl who blew herself up and killed Rajiv Gandhi was wearing a belt strapped with explosives.

They asked me whether I had supplied the belt and the explosives. I replied no. I told them that RDX explosive can be bought in India itself and that I don't have to buy explosives abroad and send them a little to be used in the belt. I also said that to my knowledge the explosive belt was not bought abroad but manufactured by the LTTE locally. They (CBI) seemed to agree," KP said.

On whether he supplied a 9 mm pistol to Sivarasan, the one-eyed handler of the killer girl Dhanu, KP said that he told the CBI that he had not supplied it. " They seemed to accept that," he added.

The Special Investigating Team (SIT) which investigated the Rajiv Gandhi assassination did not find KP playing a role in the killing. But the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency and the Jain Commission wanted the matter investigated further.

- New Indian Express