Pic: KP
Operation KP, which netted the LTTE’s chief arms procurer and the newly crowned Tiger leader, Shanmugam Kumaran Tharmalingam better known by his nom de guerre Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP alias Selvarasa Pathmanathan, is shrouded in mystery.
Equally mysterious is what he is believed to have divulged about the LTTE’s international network.
Barring a few inspired leaks to the media by top defence officials, what KP told his interrogators remains a mystery. This complete blackout on the KP affair, in fact, gave rise to the wild imagination of newspaper scribes. A whole set of grand ‘exposes’ by KP were readily available in the newspapers - one such went to the extent to report that KP planned to purchase nukes from western powers. Such reports, needless to say, should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Conspiracy theories
On the other hand, the information blackout on the KP affair was so exhaustive, it gave in to some other conspiracy theories. Some quipped that information was kept tightly under wraps by the government in order to use such in the up coming elections. This does not mean that we discount the need for secrecy in intelligence operations. But, suffice to say that in a country with a history of allegations of LTTE links being used to besmirch opposition politicians and dissenting voices, it is natural to be cynical.
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has told our sister paper, LAKBIMA, that KP had identified Jayantha Gnanakone as the coordinator of LTTE affairs in the United States. The Gnanakone link had been used against the main Opposition UNP during the Presidency of Chandrika Kumaratunga, during which Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was accused of meeting Charles Gnanakone, the eldest of the Gnanakone brothers in Singapore to negotiate a pact with the LTTE. Such allegations, concocted or real came at a cost of the UNP’s vote base. Old ghosts seem to haunt an already weakened UNP in the coming elections.
Secretary of Defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa met KP who is kept in an undisclosed military installation.
Intelligence officials interrogating KP confide that the Tiger leader is apparently stunned at the fallout of the event, yet cooperated with officials.
Other exposes by KP, which had been leaked to the press, are in fact in the domain for quite sometime. KP had said that he was in contact with the Norwegian peace envoy Erik Solheim and the UN envoy Vijay Nambiar during the final phase of the fourth Eelam war. According to him, he had sought a ceasefire yet, efforts fell short of success. He had also revealed that he persuaded the Tiger chieftain Prabhakaran to give up arms, which culminated in his announcement of “silencing guns.” Some interrogators discard his claims, yet, KP, as indicated in his announcements in the post Prabhakaran LTTE, has shown a tilt towards “taking a political path.” However, his zeal for a political path should be qualified by the fact that the LTTE today is largely defunct militarily.
Until his arrest, KP enjoyed the loyalty of LTTE cadres who were on the loose in the Wanni and in the East, including two military leaders, Ram, who is the senior- most surviving military leader and Nakulan. He has however told his interrogators that LTTE cadres who infiltrated the South prior to the annihilation of the LTTE are out of his control.
Understandably, the obliteration of the top level leadership has isolated the cells of suicide bombers and their handlers, leaving them to decide on their own missions (if they ever wish to go ahead). This holds a resemblance to the operational strategy of al Qaeda in the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan by the coalition forces. The coalition invasion deprived al-Qaeda- which until then had a top down command structure of its training grounds. Al- Qaeda evolved in to loose netted cells capable of operating independently, which Marc Sageman described as “Leaderless Jihad”. While al-Qaeda central has receded in importance, those loose knitted cells, inspired by al-Qaeda ideology have taken precedence over the attacks as observed in 7/7 London bombing and Madrid bombing.
However, how fast the LTTE, once a well-organized terrorist group with a semi conventional army and a strict top town hierarchical structure, could evolve into cells capable of independent action, needs further observation viz. the metamorphosis of the movement. Yet, suffice to say that once the conventional battle fought in the Wanni had now transformed to an intelligence war. The challenge before intelligence agencies at the moment is to dismantle cells before they rebuild contacts with the new leaders of the transnational LTTE.
Arrest and extradition
Amnesty International has questioned the legality of the arrest and extradition of KP. Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific Director Sam Zarifi is on record as saying: “International law prohibits sending someone, including a criminal suspect, back to a country where they face real possibility of torture and ill-treatment and Sri Lanka does have a poor track record of torturing and poorly treating detainees.” “So there are some real questions about how KP was taken to Sri Lanka.”
“We want to see proper justice with proper due process for KP, for any of the LTTE members detained,” he told media.
However, Sri Lankan government officials had referred to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) and the International Convention of Suppressing Terrorist Bombings (1997) to underscore the legality of the arrest.
The key provisions of the International Convention of Suppressing Terrorist Bombing states: Any person commits an offence within the meaning of the convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally delivers, places, discharges or detonate an explosive or other lethal device in, into or against a place of public use, a state of government facility, public transportation system or public facility, with the intention to cause death or serious bodily injury or extensive destruction likely to result or actually resulting in a major economic loss. Any person also commits such an offence, if that person attempts to commit such an offence as set forth above or participate as an accomplice in an offence, organizes or direct others to commit such an offence or in other way contribute to the commission of an offence by a group of persons acting in a common purpose.
States parties are required to establish jurisdiction over and make punishable under their domestic laws, the offences described, to extradite or submit for prosecution persons accused of committing or aiding the commission of offences, and to assist each other in connection with the criminal proceedings under the convention. The offences referred to in the convention are deemed to be extraditable offences between States parties under existing extradition treaties and under the convention itself.
Article 11 of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism also states: “The offences set forth in article 2 shall be deemed to be included as extraditable offences in any extradition treaty existing between any of the States Parties before the entry into force of this Convention. States Parties undertake to include such offences as extraditable offences in every extradition treaty to be subsequently concluded between them.”
Accordingly, government officials argue that KP being the chief smuggler of the LTTE’s lethal arsenal is an accomplice and has directed and organized terrorist attacks against the Sri Lankan state facilities and public places and that he is accused of controlling multi-million dollars funds intended for the LTTE, an internationally proscribed terrorist group. Hence his extradition is lawful under international law.
According to government sources, the government would push ahead with an extradition request for the Gnanakone brothers and V.Rudrakumar, Prabhakaran’s legal advisor under the same legal basis.
There had been two Interpol arrest warrants against KP.
Interpol Headquarters in Lyon, France issued a red notice against Pathmanathan, which requests member states to arrest the suspect and hold him for extradition. The notice stated, “Tharmalingam (Pathmanathan) is alleged to have been involved in the murder of Rajiv Gandhi on 21 May 1991 in Tamil Nadu, India.”
That is in addition to an extradition request made to Interpol by the Sri Lankan government.
The Thai government also issued an arrest warrant on KP after an extradition request made by the Sri Lankan government in 2008.
Born in Kankesanthurai on April 6, 1955, KP, a native from Kankesanthurai left Sri Lanka in 1983 as a merchant mariner. In 1986, Prabhakaran, still a budding terrorist, yet loathed the sole reliance of the pre-1987 Tamil militancy on India and sent KP to build an arms smuggling network for the LTTE. Using his exposure as a seafarer, KP travelled to south East Asia, the then ground zero of the underground arms market. Since then he headed the LTTE’s arms smuggling network aptly dubbed ‘KP department’.
The ‘KP Department’ functioned in liaison with LTTE wing called the ‘Aiyanna Group’. The latter was tasked with overseeing fund raising and intelligence collection.
Controlled
Two departments are believed to have controlled 200-300 million US $ worth of LTTE’s procurement budget, according to Jane’s Intelligence Review.
In January this year, Pathmanathan was appointed head of the newly created ‘Department of International Relations’. He was the sole voice of the LTTE to the international community during the heightened phase of the war. Last month, he was appointed Leader of the LTTE, in a statement issued by the Executive Committee of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On August 5, he was arrested in Malaysia and brought to Colombo by Sri Lankan Intelligence agents.
The arrest of KP at the Tune hotel in 316 Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman
Kuala Lumpur remains a top secret. The Malaysian Government, whose intelligence agency, the Malaysian Special Branch arrested KP, has been tight- lipped over the arrest.
The Sri Lankan Government, true to an assurance given to its Malaysian counter part has declined to disclose the point of pick up. However, according to information pieced together by LAKBIMA NEWS, intelligence on KP’s satellite phone which was instrumental in tracing him, the tip-off has been provided by the Sri Lankan intelligence services.
KP was arrested by MSB agents when he came out to answer a phone call. Some sources claim the caller was Daya Mohan, a senior LTTE cadre who fled to Malaysia after the rout of the LTTE.
KP was in the presence of two LTTE sympathisers, the brother of former LTTE political leader B Nadeshan and his son who flew down to KL to meet the LTTE leader.
After his arrest, KP was transported to Bangkok where intelligence agents from the Sri Lankan government received him and flew him to Colombo in a chartered flight.
KP who left the shores of Sri Lanka as a seafarer and then roamed the world clandestinely in underground arms bazaars finally has reached the end of his macabre career.
PROFILES
Jayantha Gnanakone
Jayantha Gnanakone, former Air Ceylon pilot and NGO activist was seen in a demonstration against SethuSamuderam Canal Project held opposite the Fort Railway Station, Colombo in August 2005. He is an assistant editor of the pro LTTE, eelamnation website hosted in Canada and USA. In an interview to a Sri Lankan English weekend newspaper, Sharmalee Gnanakone, his wife admitted that her family was a prominent overseas supporter of the LTTE. She also said that her husband was indirectly connected to the LTTE and supplied medicines and essential food supplies to the Tamils under Tiger control.
Jayantha Gnanakone in a right of reply to a Sri Lankan website claimed that “I have always been a good supporter of the UNP until 1983 July.” and “Of course I have known Ranil and J R since the early seventies, when I was a pilot in Air Ceylon with his son Ravi.”
He is a permanent US resident since 1983, after he fled the island in the aftermath of the Black July. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa says KP has revealed that Jayantha Gnanakone is the coordinator of LTTE affairs in the United States.
Charles Gnanakone
“Captain” Charles Gnanakone, a retired DC-8 pilot and an Australian passport holder was arrested after the killing of former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and was later released. Gnanakone has allegedly assured the former Foreign Minister that the LTTE would not assassinate him, enticing Mr Kadirgamar to scale down his security precautions.
‘The Australian’, newspaper , has described Capt. Charles Gnanakone as an agent of the LTTE known for “money-laundering and smuggling guns for the Tamil Tiger terrorists group of Sri Lanka”. Charles Gnanakone in an interview with the Weekend Liberal, an Australian newspaper has said that he was playing a key role as a peace broker and that the Sri Lankan government headed by Wickremesinghe had sent him a first class ticket to attend the peace talks. The Sri Lankan High Commission was instructed to pay the air fare for Gnanakone to attend the “peace talks”.
V. Rudrakumar
V. Rudrakumar is the legal advisor to the LTTE and a member of the LTTE team to the peace talks held during the Ranil Wickremesinghe Administration. He is a member of the LTTE’s ‘transnational government’ declared
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