COLOMBO: Sri Lankan authorities questioned the new leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels Friday after he was arrested in Southeast Asia and flown to this island nation.
Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the insurgent group’s former chief arms smuggler, assumed the leadership of the Tamil Tigers after government forces routed the rebels in May in northern Sri Lanka and killed their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Pathmanathan was believed to be based in Southeast Asia in recent years and was one of the few rebel leaders to survive the government offensive that demolished the separatists’ shadow state in northern Sri Lanka and ended the quarter century civil war.
But as Pathmanathan, known by his nom de guerre KP, worked to revive the Tamil Tigers, the government pushed for his arrest. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels said in a statement that Pathmanathan was arrested Wednesday near a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. A pro-rebel website said Pathmanathan had gone to the hotel to meet relatives of the group’s slain political leader, Balasingham Nadesan. He left the room to answer a phone call, but did not return, it said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters he could neither confirm nor deny the report. “I don’t have the facts with me. Let me find out first,” he said.
But Sri Lanka’s Island newspaper, quoting anonymous sources, said Pathmanathan had been captured in Thailand. Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn denied he was arrested there but said there were “reports that he has been traveling in and out of Thailand.”
A Thai military intelligence official said Pathmanathan had been hiding in northern Thailand under a false identity in recent months.
Sri Lankan defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella refused to provide details of the capture of Pathmanathan, who was wanted by Interpol.