Colombo: Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP, who had managed the international operations of the LTTE as its principal fund raiser and arms procurer, has gone missing from Sri Lanka, according to Dr Rajitha Senaratne, former fisheries minister and presently a close associate of President Maithripala Sirisena. He said government was investigating reports that KP had slipped out of the country through the Bandaranaike international airport here before the announcement of the Presidential election results.
It was said people had seen him in the VIP lounge and he had fled the country rather than risk being grilled by the new government. After the end of Eelam war in May 2009, the Sri Lankan military intelligence had grabbed KP from a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, with help from Malaysian police and information provided by some foreign powers, and flew him down to Colombo. After extensive ‘debriefing’, which in effect meant tough interrogation by the Lankan military it was said that defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was directly involved in this exercise to get information that led to seizure of the LTTE wealth stashed away abroad.
It was rumoured that not all the seized Tiger wealth was accounted for and brought into government coffers. After sometime, KP was rewarded for his information and allowed to move around freely in the island though under a constant military monitoring. The Rajapaksa government told him to run an orphanage ‘Sencholai’ in Kilinochchi at the same place that the LTTE had its shelter in the same name for children orphaned by the war. Also, KP took on the Tamil Diaspora in strong support of his new masters, the Rajapaksas.
