LTTE’S ELUSIVE TOP PROCUREMENT
OFFICER KUMARAN PATHMANADAN OR K.P. ARRESTED IN THAILAND
By Walter Jayawardhana
The most important guy in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
military machine after Prabhakaran and Pottuamman and the world wide
Tiger movement’s Chief procurement officer, Kumaran Pathmanabhan
who is also known as KP is reported to have been arrested by Thai police,
the Bangkok Post reported.
“Thailand has arrested the procurement and finance chief of the
Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. Kumaran Pathmanadan is reported to have been
arrested by police in Bangkok on Monday evening. He is one of the top
officials in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the formal
name of the group,” the newspaper said.
Pathmanadan, who has apparently obtained Thai citizenship has been
living in the country operating under several aliases, the sources said.
K.P. has been listed on the top of the Most Wanted list of the Interpol
and wanted in several countries in the world implicated in several assassinations
and other crimes.
The prize catch of the Thai authorities came after the detention in
Thailand’s Ranong province last month of three Tamil Tiger operatives
trying to buy guns and 45,000 rounds of ammuntion, the Bangkok Post
said.
He continued to run the global network of LTTE offices and its weapons
procurement, logistics and money laundering operations until his arrest
in Thailand , sources said.
Together with the three Tamils arrested in August KP was suspected of
managing a Tamil Tiger gun-running ring centered in Thailand.
Thai security sources said, Pathmanadan, who also had a number of aliases,
has recently been the subject of a manhunt that stretched to Johannesburg,
Rangoon, Singapore and Bangkok. Police said they believed he had bank
accounts in London, Frankfurt Denmark, Athens and Australia and has
over 200 passports for his use.
With all kinds of agencies trying to catch him KP managed to re-supply
weapons purchased in Thailand and neighbouring countries to the Tamil
Tigers in Sri Lanka. The Tigers have been designated as a terrorist
group by most western countries, but not Thailand.
The arrest would not have come at a worse time than this since the
LTTE has lost its main entry points of smuggled arms to Sri Lanka with
the fall of the Eastern Province and more recently Silavatura to the
security forces of Sri Lanka.
The most recent Jane’s intelligence Review said, "While Cambodia
is the hub of the LTTE East Asia Network, Thailand continues to serve
as the most important country for trans-shipment of munitions and coordination
of logistics... its excellent communications infrastructure, proximity
to former war zones in both Cambodia and [Burma] and its western coastline
facing the Bay of Bengal and Sri Lanka beyond have made Thailand the
ancient interface between the LTTE's war zone."
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