COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan Ambassador in Washington, Bernard Goonetileke, has alleged that LTTE has stolen 130,000 Norwegian passports and sold them to the "highest bidders" including the operatives of the Al Qaeda.

In a 30-minute interview to the National Security Affairs Correspondent of the Washington Post Radio on Thursday, The envoy said, "One of them [LTTE cadre] surfaced with 700 of the stolen passports in Thailand and got caught to the police."

Complaint to Interpol

Mr. Goonetileke told The Hindu over telephone from Washington on Saturday that Norway had lodged a complaint with the Interpol about the passports stolen "over a period of time."

Asked if Colombo had taken up the matter with Oslo, the envoy said that he was not in a position to comment on the subject immediately.

A report posted on the Sri Lanka Defence Ministry web site quoted Mr. Goonetileke as saying that the LTTE had employed a corrupt police officer to steal the passports for them and when it sold the passports they also sold them to an Al Qaeda group in Algeria.

Risk factor

The report said that the interviewer remarked that due to the easy access of European Union citizens to the United States this (the stolen and sold passports) could pose a real risk for the U.S.

"The Radio Station introduced the LTTE as the assassins of the former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and friends of the Al Qaeda terrorists of the Middle Eastern notoriety," the Defence Ministry report said.

In the interview, the Sri Lankan ambassador said the LTTE was banned in India in 1991 and the U.S. was the second country to ban it in 1997 and maintained that they proscribed the organisation because they realised that the Tamil Tigers "behavior was really dangerous to the world."

He said the proscription of the group was thereafter followed by Canada and the 27-member European Union.

In response to a question, Mr. Goonetileke reminded the interviewer the grave terrorist acts LTTE committed included the assassination of the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and said the pioneering acts of terrorism the LTTE gave to the world of terror included the devastating C-4 explosives-laden suicide jackets currently used by the Middle Eastern terrorists.

The Sri Lankan envoy told the Radio that after the USS Cole was blasted the Sea Tigers head Susai had boasted that it was their suicide boat method the Middle Eastern terrorists had copied.

Blasting of vessels

In fact, Mr. Goonetileke said the LTTE had carried out similar acts by blasting a Sri Lanka Navy vessel carrying sailors and in blasting a Chinese fishing vessel in 2000.

"Their latest pioneering act of terrorism is to fly low flying aircraft and bomb places," the ambassador said.

Mr. Goonetileke said that there were 800,000 estimated Sri Lankan Tamils spread in North America, Australia and Europe. He said money is being bilked from them using sophisticated methods of extortion.

The envoy alleged that terrorist group has forcibly taken over places of worship like Hindu temples to steal money given for charity.

Methods used

Mr. Goonetileke said narcotic sales, large-scale credit card frauds , and owning businesses and shipping lines were some other methods they used to earn money.

He said they maintained bank accounts like those of the Bhumiputra Bank of Malaysia to siphon money.

The envoy said soon after the 2002 peace agreement the LTTE started showing the insincerity by killing Tamil opponents and continuing with child abductions and assassinating some members of the security forces.

"They started sitting down for negotiations and thereafter left the negotiating table showing that they would never be satisfied with anything else other than a separate state."

Fund-raising

Mr. Goonetileke said the Tigers kept on raising funds using front organisation because of the proscriptions in the Western countries.

He said when the pseudo charity called Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) was discovered by the Commissioner of Charity in the U.K. they restarted it under the name White Pigeon.

According to him when White Pigeon was caught they transferred £5,00,000 to another one called International Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (ITRO).

Then they were transferred to the World Tamil Movement.

He said it was always a name game to siphon off charity money for terror.

Two teams held

Mr. Goonetileke said two teams related to the LTTE had already been got caught trying to buy weapons and influence in the U.S. and one team had already pleaded guilty.

In those sting operations one LTTE team offered $ 1 million as bribes to U.S. officials, hoping to get the ban on the group lifted, as one of the expectations.

In the attempt to buy surface-to-air missiles and other military equipment to down airplanes $70,000 exchanged hands as initial payments to undercover agents. Those figures would indicate, Mr. Goonetileke said, the kind of money the terrorist group was able to spend.

Answering questions the ambassador said as the focus was mainly on Islamic terrorists the resources may have been limited in the past to catch the LTTE in the U.S.

But he said he hoped the government would use resources as much as possible to bring them to books since it was one sure way of quelling the terrorism back at home.

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