http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20111023_01


Dutch Court jails five Tiger activists
A Dutch court sentenced the five LTTE activists accused of raising Euro 130 million for the group to serve between two to six years in prison in a verdict delivered on Friday. Dutch police arrested all five men in June 2010 after an investigation into the Tiger organisation.
Despite the ruling that upheld the prosecution charges the court did not recognise the LTTE as a terrorist organisation instead described it as a banned organisation and the conflict in Sri Lanka a "non-international armed conflict," foreign media reported.
This was in contrast to the EU's policy which regards the LTTE as a proscribed terror outfit since 2006. The defence attorney for two of the convicts, Victor Koppe who also appears for a case filed by the LTTE in the EU Court of Justice said he would appeal the verdict. "The trial supported a long-held view by the Sri Lankan government that LTTE front organizations continued to operate among the 800,000 Tamils in the diaspora, many of them in wealthy countries in Europe, Canada and Australia," media reports said. The case banked on a USB stick that contained the LTTE's 2010 financial plan, seized from one of the convicts, Selliah, whom the court described as "an unmissable link" in the LTTE.
The verdict read 'without Selliah's work many millions of Euros would not have gone to an outlawed organisation'.
The other men had worked for front organisations that raised money in the Netherlands.
The Court said fundraisers used threats to wrest money from the Tamil community in the Netherlands. That continued even after the military crushed the Tigers and killed their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in May 2009. Groups of fundraisers would repeatedly visit the homes of Tamils and threaten that they would not be allowed to visit their relatives in Sri Lanka if they did not pay up.
International counter terrorism expert Prof.Rohan Gunaratna told the Sunday Observer yesterday via email, "every peace loving Sri Lankan should be grateful to the Dutch government for arresting, charging, prosecuting and sentencing a cell engaged in illegal weapons procurement from North Korea and unleashing violence on Sri Lankan soil." He said the LTTE operated a branch in Netherlands that raised millions of dollars to procure arms, ammunition and explosives that killed, maimed and injured not only Armed Forces and law enforcement personnel but also civilians.
Sana Chandran aka Selliah, the LTTE international accountant and auditor who was sentenced on Friday provided the funds to purchase several tonnes of weaponry from North Korea from 1997-2009. A close associate of Prabhakaran, according to Prof.Gunaratna, he lived and operated in Holland. The court verdict clearly demonstrated that the LTTE was engaged in support activities that violated Dutch and international laws. The LTTE engaged in political assassination of world leaders, bombing public buildings in the capital of Sri Lanka, attacking civil aviation and maritime shipping, massacring civilians - in this light, Prof.Gunaratna said, it may be argued that Dutch court exceeded its mandate in relations to the case by making a political statement about a domestic conflict in a foreign country.
Courtesy : Sunday Observer