Kumaran Pathmanathan is wanted in India for his alleged involvement in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination
A Sri Lanka court has dismissed a plea by Marxist party JVP, seeking the arrest of top LTTE leader Kumaran Pathmanathan who is also wanted in India in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
A three-member bench of the Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed the petition filed by Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Information Secretary and parliamentarian Vijith Herath, seeking the arrest of the LTTE leader, saying there was no basis to proceed with the application.
Mr Herath, in his petition filed in 2015, had made a plea to the court to issue an order to the Inspector General of Police to arrest Pathmanathan alias KP and initiate legal proceedings against him for his involvement in large-scale criminal activities and carrying out arms purchase for the LTTE, Sri Lanka's internet newspaper, Colombopage reported.
Pathmanathan took over the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after the outfit's supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed by the Sri Lankan Army in 2009. During the heady days of the LTTE, KP acted as its chief international arms procurer.
He is wanted in India for his alleged involvement in Mr Gandhi's assassination in 1991. He was on an Interpol watch list for murder of the former Indian Prime Minister.
The former LTTE leader was arrested by the Malaysian intelligence on Sri Lanka's request in 2011. Upon his return to the country, he was allowed to live freely in the country's north, under security, while managing an orphanage.
Earlier, the Attorney General had informed the court that the Terrorist Investigations Division (TID) has launched a comprehensive probe against KP under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Penal Code and the Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing Act for his alleged involvement in terrorist activities, the report said.
The judges, after a lengthy trial, said that the petition had no legal basis for conducting an examination and accordingly decided to dismiss it, the report said.