Colombo: Tamil Tigers may have kept ready
MV Princess Cristina -- a cargo ship seized by the Sri Lankan
Navy -- as a getaway vessel for its leader Velupillai
Prabhakaran and others from the northern war zone during the
last phase of the 30-year-old civil war.
The cargo ship, which is suspected to be the largest
Tamil Tiger arms smuggling ship, was seized by the Sri Lankan
Navy from an undisclosed port abroad based on information
given by detained LTTE leader Selvarasa Pathamanathan.
"It is also learnt that the vessel had been kept ready
to make good the escape of the LTTE leadership at the final
stages of the Humanitrian Operations," the Sri Lankan Navy
said in a statement today.
The 89-metre-long vessel was brought into Colombo port
yesterday with intelligence officials saying it had been
utilised for arms smuggling and human trafficking during the
period of war.
The statement said the escape of top LTTE leadership
through sea was thwarted by an alert three rings of security
cordon.
It was widely speculated during the last phase of the
war in May this year that 54-year-old Prabhakaran would escape
the island and fight for another day, but he was killed by
Lankan Army on May 18, bringing curtains on the decades-old
ethnic conflict.
Navy Commander Vice Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe told
reporters that the acquiring of this vessel by Sri Lanka was a
significant achievement.
The government says it has come to light that
the detained LTTE chief owns five ships and 600 unidentified
bank accounts which are sought to be frozen.
KP, who was arrested overseas and brought to
Colombo in August this year, is considered to have run
clandestine finances of the now vanquished LTTE.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 14:25