LTTE’s US head sentenced to time served

The former head of the LTTE in the US who had pleaded guilty to providing material support to the group, was sentenced to the time served of five years on Friday. Karunakaran Kandasamy, 55, was among the four persons who had pleaded guilty in 2009 to purchasing improvised explosive devices, missiles and machine guns and raising millions of dollars for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Kandasamy had been in prison for five years and at his sentencing in the US District Court in Brooklyn, Judge Raymond Dearie sentenced him to time served. 

Prosecutors had argued that Kandasamy deserved a 20-year prison term since he was the leader of the LTTE in the US and was providing material support to a separatist group that had been designated as a terrorist organisation by the State Department. 

Kandasamy’s lawyer Charles Ross had in a May 2 letter submitted in court, requested that his client be sentenced to time served. Ross also cited Kandasamy’s ill health in seeking no additional prison term, saying he suffered from hypertension, diabetes and his physical condition is that of a much older person. In the 2009 criminal complaint, the US Justice Department had said the LTTE relied on “sympathetic Tamil expatriates”.

Agencies