Sri Lankan immigrant Prapaharan Thambithurai, who is now a Canadian Canadian citizen, acknowledged raising money from Tamil immigrants for the World Tamil Movement, but admitted knowing that some of the money would end up funding the Tamil Tigers.
He pleaded guilty earlier this week to raising $579 and also collecting pledges for an additional $1,900 from Sri Lankans in the Vancouver area.
Judge Robert Powers said Friday that while Thambithurai was a low-level collector, every penny counts for groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
"It was clear he was aware of the involvement of the LTTE," Power said of the group that is banned by the Canadian government as a terrorist organization.
The Tamil Tigers fought a civil war for a quarter of a century seeking a state independent of the ruling Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka's conflict ended in May 2009 after a massive government operation against the Tigers.
Canada put the World Tamil Movement on its list of terrorist organizations in June 2008 after Thambithurai was arrested. The Tamil Tigers militia had been put on the list in 2006.
Powers recognized Parliament gave him a lot of latitude in imposing the sentence.
"I'm told this is the first sentence under the (Criminal) Code," he told spectators in the court room that was filled with many of Thambithurai's supporters. "There is no precedent to assist me in the appropriate sentence." Canada's Anti-Terrorism Financing law was enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US
The prosecution had asked for a two-year term, but Thambithurai's lawyer asked for a three-year suspended sentence.
Thambithurai moved to Canada as a refugee in 1988 after living amid the chaos of Sri Lanka's civil war. He became a Canadian citizen in 1995.
His father died in the riots of 1983 and his brother was killed in a government ambush in 1988.
Thambithurai was arrested in New Westminster, British Columbia, in March 2008 and charged with directly or indirectly providing money, property or services to a terrorist group.
Outside court, Thambithurai's wife, Uthaya Prapaharan, said that the actual terrorist group was the Sri Lankan government.
She told a crowd of media that Tamils failed to educate the Canadian people about the real terrorists.
"They are confused between terrorists and freedom fighters," she said. "One day or another they will understand." She said her three children understand what their father was doing.
"They're proud to say, `My dad raised money for people who need.' He never raised money for terrorism, I can tell you."
