Saturday, June 21, 2008

Italian newspapers reveal scope of anti-LTTE operation

A clandestine network of the Tigers was collecting money from their fellow countrymen resident in Italy to be destined to the subversive group. Those who refused to pay a certain amount every month risked retaliations against their family members in Sri Lanka, Italian newspapers reported on the arrest of 33 Tiger cadres in that country. The newspapers La Repubblica, Il Corrierr della Sera and Il Massaggero reported extensively on this massive operation conducted throughout Italy.

The report in the La Repubblica: “This is a distant war on which the investigators of the Special Police of Naples coordinated by the Anti-Terrorist Department of the Law Courts have focused their attention. The secrets of the mechanism of financing this war were kept by unsuspected immigrants, all with a regular stay permit and who have been living are working as domestics in Italy for many years.

Thirty Sri Lankan citizens of the Tamil ethnic group have been arrested with the accusation of association finalised to terrorism and extortion.

The operation took place in Naples, Rome, Palermo, Genoa, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Mantova and Biella. The persons under investigations are accused to be members of the LTTE, the terrorist organisation that has caused so much bloodshed in Sri Lanka during the last 25 years and has provoked the death of over 8,000 civilians. In one year over Euro 3.5 million have been collected to be destined to the Tigers, often by blackmail.

Read more,
http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/06/21/sec02.asp

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