NEPAL: FURTHER INFORMATION ON MAOIST LEADER

S E C R E T KATHMANDU 001649 SIPDIS STATE FOR SA/INS LONDON FOR POL - GURNEY NEW DELHI FOR POL AND LEGATT NSC FOR MILLARD E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/27/2013 TAGS: PTER PREL IN UK NP SUBJECT: NEPAL: FURTHER INFORMATION ON MAOIST LEADER CAPTURED IN INDIA REF: KATHMANDU 1638 Classified By: AMB. MICHAEL E. MALINOWSKI. REASON: 1.5 (B,D). ¶1. (C) In an informal discussion with the Ambassador on August 27, Indian Ambassador Shyam Saran and British Ambassador Keith Bloomfield provided further details on the August 20 arrest of Nepali Maoist Chandra Gajurel in Chennai. According to Ambassador Bloomfield, Gajurel was traveling on a fraudulent British passport that had been issued in Paris. Indian immigration officials were suspicious of the authenticity of the passport. (Their suspicions were also piqued by Gajurel's statement that he had never been to Paris.) Gajurel told Indian immigration officials that he was traveling to the UK to meet British political parties and members of the expatriate Nepali community. Also found in Gajurel's possession was the return half of a round-trip ticket from London to the Gulf to Dhaka. By chance, a British consular official happened to be at the airport at the time and verified that the passport was fraudulent. ¶2. (S) The Indian Ambassador reported that Indian authorities had been keeping Gajurel under surveillance for some time before his arrest. Both the British and Indian Ambassadors speculated that Gajurel might be going to London in order to collect money from Maoist extortion rings and from sympathizers. The Indian Ambassador also suggested that he might have been planning to attend a Revolutionary International Movement (RIM) meeting in London. Neither Ambassador reported any evidence that Gajurel may have been attempting to meet King Gyanendra (currently visiting London) or a member of his entourage, although the Indian Ambassador referred several times to "rumors" that that might be the case. Noting the rumored presence of Maoist leader Prachanda's brother in the UK, Saran alluded to reports suggesting that Mohan Vaidya, another top-ranking Politburo member, is also currently in London. ¶3. (C) In an August 28 meeting with the Ambassador, Palace confidant Prabhakar Rana claimed that there was no substance to rumors that Gajurel was to meet either the King or a member of his party. Rana said that he would be making the same point to the Prime Minister's Office in New Delhi later in the week. ¶4. (S) Comment: We expect that despite denials from both the Palace and the British, rumors will continue to reverberate that the Palace, perhaps abetted by the British government, was moving to arrange a surreptitious meeting--or that perhaps the British government was independently attempting to arrange or contrive such a meeting--between the King or a member of his party and senior Maoist leaders. Unfortunately, such rumors will only reinforce unwarranted suspicions among some political parties that the Palace and the Maoists are in collusion. If it is true that Mohan Vaidya, who is among the top four in the Maoist Politburo, and/or Prachanda's brother is in the UK, we would hope that they would soon be secured by British authorities. MALINOWSKI