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Lanka's mystery handball team a headache for the French
By Paul Michaud
Paris, Saturday - French authorities grappling with a major racket involving Chinese immigrants faces are now confronted with the mysterious appearance and disappearance of a Sri Lankan national handball team, which did or did not exist.

The team's 23 members recently arrived in Germany and disappeared soon after with reports saying they were Italy or France bound. The authorities say they're quite flustered, not only with Colombo for having allowed their nationals to board flights out of Bandaranaike International Airport without having apparently provided proper papers, but also with Berlin, for it was Germany that originally allowed the handball team into the country, as they were supposedly headed for Bavaria where they were scheduled to take part in a months' long training session.

The team members were last seen on Monday, Sept. 13th, at Wittislingen. The German police found five pairs of shoes and a letter in their hotel rooms indicating that the members had chosen to made their way into France.

German immigration officials said the Sri Lankan handball team members were issued visas because, according to their envoy in Colombo, the papers appeared to be quite genuine.

The French authorities now say Sri Lanka never had a handball team in the first place. French daily newspaper Le Figaro, which had claimed that the 23 members had made their escape to France on its front page, quoted the president of the Sri Lankan olympic committee as saying that "we don't even have a handball club!."

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