Yard nabs suspected Tigers for alleged extortion

By Asif Fuard

Britain’s Scotland Yard detectives have detained two suspected LTTE members who had been carrying out a large scale extortion racket which led to the death of a Tamil shopkeeper in London. A Scotland Yard source in London told The Sunday Times over the telephone the arrests were made last week when an LTTE office was raided.

“We have found that the two persons arrested had come to Britain through refugee status. We are investigating their links in the killing of a shopkeeper in London,” he said. The shopkeeper was identified as Subramaniam Sivakumar (44). The father of three was found dead in January this year face down on the floor of his store - the Apna Bazaar - in Willesden High Road, London.

A post-mortem examination was unable to determine cause of death but puncture marks were found behind his ear and he had been tied before he died raising the possibility he had been tortured to death.

The Scotland Yard team investigating the homicide had found Mr. Sivakamar’s diary which he had been regularly updating. The police investigation has focused on a diary entry made by Mr. Sivakumar in which he referred to a visit of the killers as the ‘Tiger Boys’ – a reference to the LTTE members who had constantly come to his shop and harassed him.

Before his killing the men had reportedly demanded £15,000 and were due to return to his shop to collect it. Investigations have revealed that on many occasions he had complied with the demand of the LTTE except this particular time.

Police are also urgently seeking Jeyanthan Anandarajah, known as ‘Apan’, an employee of the shopkeeper who was the last person to see him alive. Investigators believe that after the killing Apan returned to his family in Germany. A £20,000 reward had been offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for the killing.

However LTTE gangs in Great Britain are thriving and there have been reports where some LTTE members had been extorting money from Tamil expatriates who had migrated to the UK due to the ethnic conflict.

There have been several reports filed in Scotland Yard where the LTTE had torched houses and caused damage to property belonging to Sri Lankan Tamils in Great Britain when they refused to fund the organisation.

The move to have a specialised unit to crack down on LTTE gangs involved in several crimes during the past in London came in the wake of the arrest of six former LTTE cadres in East London last year when Scotland Yard in a special operation raided the house they were living in. The police found several computer hardware devices as well as fourteen stolen credit cards and six forged ones.