The new Tamil Tiger chief, Shanmugam Kumaran Tharmalingam (alias Selvarasa Pathmanathan, Kumaran Pathmanathan or simply KP), was arrested in Thailand and brought to Colombo on Thursday for questioning. However Thai officials refuted the reports, claiming they had no information about such an arrest.
According to informed sources KP was arrested by the Thai Police at a house in the suburbs of Bangkok after nightfall on August 5th. Sri Lankan authorities were contacted and a “special” team from the Police Terrorist Investigation Department flew to Bangkok in the early hours of Thurasday August 6th. The team returned with Pathmanathan alias KP on a Thai Airways flight on the same day. However, there were no details of the circumstances under which he was taken into custody.
For a long time India has been seeking to get him extradited for the part he had played in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and Sri Lanka has been wanting extradition for the vital part he has played in arming and financing a 30 year old insurgency.
KP alias Selvarasa Pathmanathan has been trying to form a provisional transnational government for the expatriate Tamils. But many who were involved in the LTTE including , the mouthpiece of the outfit, the Tamil Net opposed KP.
When Prabhakaran was cornered by the Sri Lankan army the LTTE leader heavily depended on KP to negotiate with International powers to come and save him. Commenting on that Gunaratne said, “Prabhakaran relied on KP to lobby the international community to intervene during the last phase of the campaign. However, KP failed leading to the death of Prabhakaran and almost the entire leadership. A man who failed in this very important LTTE mission will not be accepted by the LTTE hardliners overseas.”
Wow its nice to hear that KP was arrested. Anyway I feel Sri Lanka has great future with Mahinda Rajapakasa.