05 April, Sharm El Shiekh, Egypt; The Foreign Ministry followed up on a request it made to Malaysia last year to share intelligence on LTTE funding activities, but the Malaysians were not ready with an answer.
Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama met his Malaysian counterpart Dr. Rayes Yatim for bilateral talks at the Asia-Middle East Ministerial Summit, held here over the weekend, where he reminded him of Sri Lanka’s request.
"We have reason to believe that the LTTE are raising and channeling these funds to procure arms through Malaysia’s banking system. In the UK we found that the LTTE had been extorting money from the Tamil Diaspora to the tune of five million sterling pounds a month while in France it amounted to seven million sterling pounds. In addition to this, the outfit’s narcotics, human trafficking and smuggling operations generated up to US $ 300 million" Bogollagama said.
He said that the LTTE collected taxes amounting to 1000 sterling pounds on wedding receptions while salaries were taxed 2000-3000 sterling pounds in the UK.
Foreign Minister Yatim’s response was that he would look into the matter.
Later in the day, Malaysia’s Deputy Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, Dato Haniff, in a panel discussion titled, ‘A Comprehensive Approach for Combating Terrorism in Asia and the Middle East’, said that Malaysia had introduced anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing legislation and had the ability to seize assets and freeze funds of suspected terrorist activists.
