LTTE DENIES IT IS USING INTELSAT 12 SATELLITE ILLEGALLY

By Walter Jayawardhana

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has completely rejected the notion of the Washington based Intelsat Corporation’s press statement that they were using the Intelsat 12 satellite illegally.
Rasiah Ilantheriyan , spokesman for the LTTE told agency services in Sri Lanka , “We are accessing it legally and there is no signal piracy”

An Intelsat executive and Legal Counsel for the Intelsat, the world’s biggest commercial satellite provider, Phillip Spector told this correspondent that the LTTE was a pirate in an earlier telephone interview but was quite reluctant to indicate an exact date it would terminate the services. He said satellite technology was so complex and it was not possible to turn off the services immediately but it would be done as soon as possible.

If the switching off the services would not happen within a reasonable time the matter could easily become a subject dealt at the diplomatic level , informed sources said.

Ilantheriyan declined to discuss the terms and contract with the service provider but would only insist that nothing illegal had been done.

The Intelsat issued the press statement calling the terrorist outfit, listed as a foreign terrorist group by the State Department was using their Intelsat 12 satellite illegally to broadcast radio and television programs .

Intelsat, in its press statement said it had agreed with the Sri Lankan ambassador in Washington D..C., Bernard Goonetileke that the LTTE was a listed terrorist group in the United States and it was illegally using its services.

The LTTE is up-linking its radio and television programs , mainly for the consumption of expatriate Tamils as a tool to collect funds to procure arms

mainly in the Western Europe from a secret location , believed close to Vavuniya, in Northern Sri Lanka.