Sri Lanka rebel peace team nabbed with gun catalogues
COLOMBO, March 7 (Reuters) - Tamil Tiger rebels were delayed on their return from peace talks in Europe on Tuesday after airport customs officials in Sri Lanka found gun catalogues in their luggage and briefly confiscated them.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were also forced to pay $380 in duty on a range of new items including electric razors, head-mounted torches and digital cameras, officials said. The Tigers had no immediate comment.
"There had been some catalogues of small guns and weapons, like shotguns and revolvers," Sarath Jayatilake, Director General of Customs, told Reuters.
"This was taken over by customs, and thereafter they have examined this with the military specialists ... and then finally they have decided there was no offensive kind of literature in that and they have decided to release it," he added.
The Tigers have built up a formidable arsenal ranging from high-speed assault boats to artillery, rocket-propelled grenades and a number of small aircraft smuggled into the country in pieces.
The rebels and the Sri Lankan government agreed at crunch talks in Geneva last month to halt an upsurge in violence that threatened to end a 2002 truce and plunge the island back into a two-decade civil war that killed more than 64,000 people.
However each side has since accused the other of negotiating in bad faith and of carrying out new killings and preparing for war on an island still striving to recover from the 2004 tsunami.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were also forced to pay $380 in duty on a range of new items including electric razors, head-mounted torches and digital cameras, officials said. The Tigers had no immediate comment.
"There had been some catalogues of small guns and weapons, like shotguns and revolvers," Sarath Jayatilake, Director General of Customs, told Reuters.
"This was taken over by customs, and thereafter they have examined this with the military specialists ... and then finally they have decided there was no offensive kind of literature in that and they have decided to release it," he added.
The Tigers have built up a formidable arsenal ranging from high-speed assault boats to artillery, rocket-propelled grenades and a number of small aircraft smuggled into the country in pieces.
The rebels and the Sri Lankan government agreed at crunch talks in Geneva last month to halt an upsurge in violence that threatened to end a 2002 truce and plunge the island back into a two-decade civil war that killed more than 64,000 people.
However each side has since accused the other of negotiating in bad faith and of carrying out new killings and preparing for war on an island still striving to recover from the 2004 tsunami.
posted by Marko at 3/07/2006 09:15:00 AM
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