Enterprising Tamil Tiger Fundraiser Wins Award

UNCLAS TORONTO 000169 SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KTFN PGOV PTER CA CE SUBJECT: Enterprising Tamil Tiger Fundraiser Wins Award Sensitive But Unclassified - Please protect accordingly. ¶1. (U) A 27 year-old MBA student, wanted by U.S. law enforcement for allegedly setting up an elaborate terrorism-support network for the Tamil Tigers, was awarded a C$5,000 academic prize for his "entrepreneurial skills" by Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. The student, Suresh Sriskandarajah (DOB: 31 July 1980) is also known as "Waterloo Suresh" to Tamil Tiger leaders overseas. The U.S. has asked Canada to extradite him to the U.S. to stand trial on charges of acquiring C$22,000 worth of sensitive warship-building software for the Tamil Tigers and related money-laundering charges. The student is free on bail pending the outcome of his extradition hearing, currently scheduled for January ¶2009. Some, but not all, of his activities are alleged to have occurred before Canada's Conservative government blacklisted the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist group in the spring of 2006. ¶2. (SBU) COMMENT: Canadian census data indicates that 98,000 Canadians claim Tamil as their mother tongue. This award would seem to indicate that not all Canadians view the Tamil Tigers as the terrorists that Canadian and U.S. law hold them to be. END COMMENT. NAY