Canadian police search suspicious LTTE building

Canada's Counter terrorism police searched a building in Montreal recently due to suspicion it was still being used to raise money for the LTTE two years after the police first raided it for the same reason.

The Royal Canadian Military Police (RCMP) searched the Montreal office of the World Tamil Movement last week and seized items allegedly linked to Tamil Tigers fundraising, according to documents recently unsealed by the Federal Court.

A judge authorised the search after police officers noticed collection tills and items bearing the Tamil Tigers emblem inside the building.

The building had been emptied of all such materials during a 2006 police raid. "Some of those items are similar to the ones seized on April 13, 2006, and indicate that the same type of activities are still going on in the building in 2008," according to a police affidavit filed in the court.

The search is the latest development in a massive terrorist financing investigation that spans three provinces and is trying to unravel a network - the RCMP said has raised millions to arm the Tamil Tigers. The World Tamil Movement (WTM) purports to be an ordinary community group, but the newly unsealed police affidavit said it is actually a "foreign branch" of the terrorist outfit, used to collect money from Canadian Tamils to finance the civil war and purchase arms.

RCMP Constable Eric Boissonneault wrote in the affidavit that the "sole purpose" of the Montreal WTM office was "facilitating" the cause of the Tigers.

He also accused the group of using aggressive fundraising methods.