Lankan Defence Secy denies helping Karuna

Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse has rejected accusations that he helped renegade LTTE leader V Muralitharan, better known as Colonel Karuna, to secure a diplomatic passport through which he entered Britain.

His remarks came a day after BBC reported Karuna's allegations made in a British court that Rajapakse, younger brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, "arranged everything" for him to travel to the UK using a diplomatic passport.

Karuna was sentenced to nine months in prison by the Isleworth Crown Court in West London on Friday for traveling on a forged passport to Britain

"I haven't helped him (Karuna). It is wrong for the British judiciary to make public these claims without verification," Gotabhaya Rajapakse told 'Lakbimanews'.

Reading out Karuna's statement in the open court, the prosecution had charged that President's Rajapakse's brother was known to him since he defected from the LTTE.

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