Detained Sri Lankans may be Tamil Tigers fleeing to Canada: Expert - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The 76 Sri Lankans, detained on a migrant ship off the West Coast last month, may be the first wave of defeated LTTE fleeing to Canada, a terrorism expert has said. Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert who is advising Canada on detained men, said that one of the 76 Sri Lankans was a key player in the LTTE network that transported weapons from North Korea to Sri Lanka. He also defended his claim that most migrants are Tamil Tigers, not refugees, who are coming to Canada to regroup. His views are outlined in a 109-page document submitted to the Immigration and Refugee Board, which is holding detention hearings for the 76 migrants, The Globe and Mail reports. Gunaratna further said the ship- Princess Easwary- was owned and operated by the Tamil Tigers and was one of the few to survive the civil war. The surviving rebels decided to use it to move former Tamil Tigers to Canada, he added. "They (Tamil Tigers) want to reorganize and regroup themselves. They see Canada as a place where they can do that. There has been a tradition in Canada of being soft on terrorism. There is no better place for Tamil Tigers to reconstitute than in Canada. They chose Canada as their destination," Gunaratna said. There are several other ships carrying Tamil migrants to Indonesia and Australia, he added.