Sri Lanka's defeated Tamil Tiger rebels on Sunday demanded an investigation into how their new leader was detained in Malaysia and flown home for questioning. Investigation? It's obvious, isn't it ...
Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, a senior Tiger, said Malaysia must release details on the "abduction" of Selvarasa Pathmanathan. Officials in Colombo have declined to say how Pathmanathan was detained, but the Thai government said he was arrested in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday and transferred to Sri Lanka through Bangkok. "If the government of Malaysia does not have any information on the matter, we demand an inquiry into the whole episode," Rudrakumaran said in an emailed statement.
Why don'tcha take a pill? Preferably your cyanide pill.
Pathmanathan, who took over as head of the Tamil Tigers after its founding chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed in the final stages of fighting in May, was trying to revive the rebel group from overseas, the group has said. A Sri Lankan Defence Ministry spokesman told reporters on Friday that Pathmanathan was being interrogated in Sri Lanka, but declined to explain how he had been detained.
Pathmanathan is wanted by Interpol on gun-running charges and by the Indian government in connection with the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by a Tamil suicide bomber in 1991. He was thought to have fled to Malaysia from Thailand two years ago.