posted June 06, 2001 11:44 AM
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20010606/583449.html&qs=lanka June 6, 2001
Threat to Canadians?
A suspected terrorist accused of masterminding an extortion campaign in Switzerland is living in Toronto and trying to persuade the Canadian government to accept him as a refugee
Stewart Bell
National Post
TORONTO - A dapper, multi-lingual man with a Danish passport, Siva Shanmugan arrived at Montreal's Dorval airport aboard Mexicana Flight 880 and walked to the immigration desk to make a refugee claim.
On his application form, he described himself as a 38-year-old unmarried college teacher born in northern Sri Lanka, and said he wanted asylum because "Canada is a best country for refugees."
A month later, RCMP officers raided a home in a Toronto suburb and arrested Shanmugan -- after discovering he was actually Muralitharan Nadarajah, a suspected high-ranking terrorist leader accused of running a "Mafia-style" extortion campaign in Switzerland.
Also known as Swiss Murali, Mr. Nadarajah was the suspected mastermind behind what a Canadian immigration official called a "reign of terror" that used violence and intimidation to raise money for the notorious Tamil Tigers terrorist group. He is also suspected of orchestrating a bold political
assassination in France.
"Sometimes," Mr. Nadarajah told an RCMP officer, "you have to do things to people for the good of the cause."
The cause is independence for the ethnic Tamil minority of Sri Lanka, an island
off India's southeast coast where the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) has waged a terrorist campaign that the Canadian government blames for 50,000 deaths.
When police raided Mr. Nadarajah's home in the Toronto suburb, they found a cache of LTTE-related material, including photographs showing him leading pro-Tiger parades in Switzerland, photos of AK-47 assault rifles and a laptop computer bearing encrypted e-mail messages.
"Mr. Murali is a world-class leader, in my estimation, in the Tamil Tigers," Sergeant Fred Bowen, a leading RCMP authority on the Tamil Tigers, testified recently before an immigration adjudicator. A Canadian
Security Intelligence Service report calls him "a top international leader of the LTTE."
Despite the concerns, Mr. Nadarajah continues to live in the Toronto area, one of a growing number of accused terrorists who have been set free by immigration judges after being accused by police of complicity in political violence prior to their arrival in Canada.
Federal immigration law allows the government to detain foreigners only if they are considered a threat to Canadians or there is a fear they might flee. But immigration adjudicators have adopted a narrow definition of what constitutes a threat. In repeated rulings, they have said that suspected terrorists do not necessarily need to be jailed because they have not targeted Canadians.
The issue was raised recently in the House of Commons, when Lynne Yelich, a Canadian Alliance MP from Saskatchewan, asked why Pirakalathan Ratnavel had been allowed to return to his home in Markham, just north of Toronto, despite being a suspected terrorist assassin. Elinor Caplan, the Minister of
Immigration, responded by accusing the opposition of "trial by media" but added she did not always agree with the judges' decisions.
The Supreme Court of Canada is also grappling with a related case. At issue is the definition of a security threat: Is a terrorist harmless to Canadians because his violence has been directed at foreign targets? Or is security a broader concept, threatened by the mere presence of a terrorist on Canadian soil?
Mr. Nadarajah was born on Oct. 25, 1960, in Inuval on Sri Lanka's Jaffna peninsula, the axis of an 18-year-old guerrilla war between government security forces and the LTTE, an insurgent force that has been universally condemned for its long-standing use of terrorist tactics.
Active in Sri Lanka's volatile politics as a youth, he was arrested at the outset of the civil war in the early 1980s and spent 32 months in an assortment of jails without being formally charged. During his detention, his wife, Sathiyasri, claims she was subjected to "humiliation and suffering" by troops stationed nearby at Palaly who would visit her house, which was eventually destroyed.
Following his release in 1986, Mr. Nadarajah fled to Madras, India, where he worked at the LTTE propaganda office along with Anton Balasingham and Anton Philip Sinnarasa, the RCMP alleges. (Mr.Balasingham is now the LTTE's international political chief in London and Mr. Sinnarasa is a refugee in
Toronto.)
"After his stint in the propaganda department he was sent by the LTTE to Switzerland to look after their affairs there," Sgt. Bowen testified. Mr. Nadarajah arrived in Switzerland in March, 1990; his wife and
three children had gone there the previous year. His wife claims he shunned her in Europe and lived with another woman.
Within a month of arriving in Zurich, Mr. Nadarajah assumed leadership of the country's LTTE network,the RCMP says. His role was to run what Canadian immigration official Phil Allchin called a "Mafia-style" collection racket that raised money from Tamil refugees to finance the LTTE war chest.
He allegedly ordered the bombing of homes, as well as beatings and threats, immigration records show. "Murali looked after obtaining finances and he did it in a rather rough way," Sgt. Bowen testified. "A lot of
times people would donate money freely, but he was associated with efforts to extort money, threaten people with money, things of that nature."
While Mr. Nadarajah was living in Switzerland, a Sri Lankan refugee in France named Sabalingam Sabaratnam began writing a book about the Tamil Tigers. The author had been an acquaintance of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the assassin who commands the Tigers, and the LTTE feared his exposé would
damage the Tamil independence movement by revealing the leader's unsavory past. Mr. Sabaratnam was shot execution-style in front of his family.
During a recent immigration hearing, Sgt. Bowen called Mr. Nadarajah a co-conspirator in the 1994 killing: Sgt. Bowen testified Mr. Nadarajah made arrangements for the meeting where Mr. Sabaratnam was shot in the head by two trained Tiger militants, Mr. Ratnavel and Arianayagam Marianesa (a.k.a.Shukla). No charges have been laid in the shooting because of what is perceived as a lack of witnesses willing to testify.
Mr. Nadarajah was later arrested by Swiss police and accused of masterminding the extortion operation, but he was never convicted. Marcel Bosonnet, his Zurich lawyer, claims the charges were a political tactic by Switzerland to convince Sri Lanka to accept deported refugees.
"I know that Muralitharan Nadaraja [sic] is not a member of the LTTE," the lawyer said in a letter to Canadian authorities. "But he was working for the Tamil refugees in Switzerland ... Muralitharan Nadarajy [sic] has a good character and gave the refugees ... important help." Sgt. Bowen said the Swiss case did not proceed because the witnesses were afraid. "There were no people willing to testify against him," Sgt. Bowen said. "They did not want to testify against a leader of the Tigers due to perceived threats on themselves or family members both in Switzerland and abroad."
Rumours that Mr. Nadarajah had been dipping into LTTE accounts and engaging in sexual misconduct eventually reached the Tiger leadership and he allegedly received a letter summoning him to a meeting with Mr. Prabhakaran at his jungle hideout in rebel-held northern Sri Lanka.
Mr. Nadarajah's family left Switzerland in 1997 and returned to India, then hired a smuggler who took them to Malaysia, the United States and Montreal, where they made a refugee claim. His wife told immigration officials she had been abandoned by Mr. Nadarajah. Sgt. Bowen later got word that Mr.
Nadarajah would be coming to Canada and contacted Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which placed his name on the departmental lookout system.
But Mr. Nadarajah still managed to slip in undetected. He hired an agent in Singapore and, for US$1,000, got a forged Danish passport. He flew to Mexico and then transferred to a Montreal-bound flight. He filed a refugee claim on Aug. 3, 1998, under the bogus name. Had immigration officials known his true identity, he would not have been allowed to enter Canada.
Sgt. Bowen soon heard from RCMP Corporal Joe McAllister that Mr. Nadarajah had apparently arrived and had joined his wife in Toronto. Police went to the home and found a man who initially identified himself as Siva Shanmugan but later admitted his true identity.
Hours after his arrest, Mr. Nadarajah also admitted his role with the LTTE in Switzerland. Asked by police what happened to the money he raised in Europe, he responded that the "political answer" was that it
went "to help children," according to his immigration file. "He refused to say what amount went for fighting and terrorism." He declined to further discuss his activities in Switzerland.
Mr. Nadarajah was convicted of obstructing a peace officer and sentenced to one day in addition to the six weeks he had already served. Since coming to Canada, Mr. Nadarajah has attended "at least one high-level meeting of LTTE leadership in Toronto," Sgt. Bowen testified.
An immigration adjudicator said it was a "reasonable conclusion" that the LTTE violence in Switzerland had been directed by Mr. Nadarajah but that there was insufficient evidence to suggest he was a danger to Canadians. The judge also said it appeared he may have been expelled from the Tigers for his alleged transgressions.
He was set free on the condition he not associate with Tamil Tigers or their alleged Toronto-based front groups, including the World Tamil Movement and the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils. A childhood friend, Murugupillai Pavalaghanthan, posted a $50,000 cash bond.
A decision on his refugee claim is expected soon. But Mr. Nadarajah has made it clear he intends to use the courts to challenge any deportation attempt. He maintains he is not a member of the LTTE and has nothing to do with violence.
"Mr. Murali in all my discussions admits certain things and denies other things. He admits things that don't implicate him," Sgt. Bowen testified
"He is a fascinating individual."
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posted May 23, 2001 09:34 PM
