The Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office will take its investigation into suspected money laundering by 12 members of the Swiss Tamil Tigers (LTTE) to the Netherlands and Sri Lanka, it was reported on Sunday.
The NZZ am Sonntag newspaper reported that in the Netherlands, Swiss prosecutors planned to interview the head of finance of the LTTE who is imprisoned there. In Sri Lanka, prosecutors will question some 25 people from senior ranks of the Tamil Tigers, some of whom are currently imprisoned.
Switzerland is home to some 42,000 Tamils (Keystone)
Jeannette Balmer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office told the paper the aim of the investigations, due to take place in autumn, was to strengthen the money laundering case against the 12 Swiss Tamils who were .
“It’s to prove that the Swiss branch of the global LTTE knowingly and willingly misused money from illegally obtained loans to inject it into the international finance circuit of the organisation,” Balmer said.
The proecutor’s office suspects that the Tamils used fake payslips or Sri Lankans resident in Switzerland to obtain loans of between SFr70,000 – 100,000 ($73,000 – 104,000). Once obtained, the cash was couriered to Sri Lanka where it was laundered locally and eventually used to finance the purchase of weapons during the civil war, the prosecutor believes.
The investigations in Sri Lanka come after the Swiss Prosecutor’s Office made an official request to Sri Lankan authorities in 2011, which was granted.
After being at war with the Tamil Tigers for some 25 years, the Sri Lankan government is keen for criminal convictions of Tamils.
However, under the terms of the agreement with Sri Lankan authorities – which Swiss authorities fear would otherwise assert undue pressure on witnesses – the interrogations will take place in the presence of Swiss lawyers only.
The usual Sri Lankan method of hearings based on a questionnaire will not occur and no Sri Lankan authorities will not be present during the interrogations.
The three-decade civil war in Sri Lanka ended in May 2009 after Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and the last of his soldiers made their final stand against the Sri Lankan army. Casualties among the Tamil civilian population trapped in the disputed Vanni enclave shocked the world.
A 2011 United Nations-sponsored report on Sri Lanka said there was “credible evidence” the military killed thousands of civilians at the end of the civil war. The report also found the Tamil Tiger separatists used civilians as human shields as troops closed in on their final positions.
The report concluded that the government’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, which has investigated the end of the conflict in response to international pressure, was “deeply flawed”.
swissinfo.ch
gamini / June 11, 2012
First, all these Western Govts were sympathetic to the Tamil cause and allowed everything the Tamils did. Infact the Tamil diaspora were helped by these very forces. Then the Architects of conflict, the American Zionists, found their ally MR to govern Sri Lanka and decided to abandon the Tamil diaspora and halt the LTTE civil war, to enable the US to do business with the Indians and the Chinese together, consisting of a market force of over three and a half billion population. Hence they staged a Typical American War Drama, closing the stage for all including the UN and covertly helped MR to be the War Victor, disseminating news of the War Drama through a media centre established for the purpose. As a sequence today, the Tamils who were involved with the Tamil cause helping the LTTE in the West for the last thirty years, is taken to task now for their role played.
The same happened in China. First the US tried to infiltrate China with the Tinnamen Square incident. When they failed, they palled up with the corrupt Chinese Political leadership, the great Socialists who had turned out to be the Crony Capitalists ruling China today, the country boasting the largest number of Billionaires under Mao’s Socialism. Not only the US befriended the Corrupt Chinese Political leadership, the Chinese invested their money in the US economy which is said to be in debt, running into trillians of dollars. Do you seriously think that the Chinese are fools to have invested their moneies in the debt ridden American economy? All the Corrupt and Ruthless are in the forefront in all countries governing, helping each other for their own survival, taking the masses everywhere for a Right Royal Ride.
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