TAMIL SPOKESMAN ADMITS HE WAS A FORMER CANADIAN GANGLAND MEMBER BUT DENIES HE IS SMUGGLING HUMANS

Written by Walter Jayawardhana

Monday, 09 November 2009 01:59

November 08

The man who was issuing statements for more than 250 Tamil asylum seekers for Australia calling himself Alex has admitted that he was a convicted Canadian gangland criminal as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sri Lanka has alleged , the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

But he had denied being a human smuggler as accused by the Sri Lanka government

Alex, as he has called himself until now, is actually Sanjeev Kuhendrarajah. “Mr Kuhendrarajah say he ran out of options after being deported back to Sri Lanka from Canada.

"It is true. I did reserve a place in Canada. I grew up in Canada and I had my education in Canada and I did get involved in something in Canada that I shouldn't have gotten involved in," he said.

"Things I've done were wrong and I plead guilty to these incidences. I did my time in jail and these charges did include some charges that were very dangerous."

“One of the charges was threatening someone's life.

"I was sentenced to one year in prison for that and after, when my one year in prison was almost over, there were threats of attack in New York," he said.

“He says because of the 2001 September 11 attacks, he was denied parole and was further detained.

"I was put up in immigration halls and there was a deportation order out for me. I had to appeal that deportation order and I had to go to the immigration commissioner which took two years," he said.

"The Canadian government decided that it was safe enough for me to return as I had no relations with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and therefore it would be OK for me to be deported or sent back to Sri Lanka. I was removed from Canada in 2003 for a period of five years.

"The same thing happens as happened in Sri Lanka, which I was very scared because I had no experience with it and I just had to take my family and go to a country, wherever I can go, and because I was not allowed to go to any European countries or North American countries I decided to go to India." (EOM)