By DPA
Bangkok : Thai authorities Wednesday flatly denied any knowledge of the alleged arrest here of Tamil Tigers financier Kumaran Padmanathan Monday.
“No one knows anything at all (about this) among the government agencies,” said Thai Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Piriya Khemponroeign. “We have no knowledge of anything. All we know is from the newspapers.”
Thailand’s national police spokesman Lieutenant General Ronnarong Youngyuen said he had checked with all the related police bureaus and found no reports on Kumaran’s arrest.
“There was no arrest,” Rannarong told DPA. “Kumaran didn’t come here.”
A Colombo dateline dispatch added: The Sri Lankan government is set to seek the deportation of Pamanathan, government spokesman and Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle said Wednesday.
The minister told a news conference that the foreign ministry would be requesting the international criminal police organization to deport Kumaran Pathmanathan, 49, better known as KP.
The minister said it was an arrest made by the Interpol and not by the Thai government and therefore Sri Lanka was seeking the deportation of the suspect from the Interpol.
Kumaran is believed have more than 200 passports for his use. His arrest is considered a major blow to the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which depends on military hardware from foreign countries for their armed struggle against the Sri Lankan security forces.
India’s Crime Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Vijay Shanker was quoted saying Wednesday that he had approached Thai authorities and Interpol Bangkok to confirm Kumaran’s detention but had received “no response.”
Kumaran allegedly financed the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
There have been allegations that the LTTE has purchased weapons from Thailand in the past and a plot to build a submarine for the Tigers in Phuket, a Thai resort island, was uncovered several years ago.