On the hunt for Tamil Tigers' new leader

Rick Westhead
South Asia bureau

NEW DELHI–Sri Lanka's government spent much of the past quarter-century on the hunt for Velupillai Prabhakaran, the short, stocky leader of the Tamil Tigers whose death last month seemed to herald an end to the island country's on-again, off-again civil war.

Yet weeks after his shattered corpse was shown on TV, Sri Lankan authorities remain on the prowl, searching for Prabhakaran's shadowy successor, a man of whom there are few photographs and who has been on Interpol's most wanted list.

His name: Kumaran Pathmanathan.

The Sri Lankan government is pressing Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Laos to help find Pathmanathan, a long-time weapons buyer for the Tigers who has become Prabhakaran's anointed successor. Indian police believe Pathmanathan was behind the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

Known within Tamil circles as KP, Pathmanathan seems to travel internationally with ease, thanks to numerous identities – authorities say he has used as many as 23 aliases – and, since no one really knows what he looks like, it has not been a problem.

Canadian police say the Tigers continue to raise funds in the GTA, Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona told the Star.

Fundraisers for the Tigers go door to door, pressuring residents to donate to their cause, and have also started extorting low-income workers such as strawberry pickers, Kohona said.

In all, the 54-year-old Pathmanathan is believed to control cash and assets worth between $1 billion and $5 billion (U.S.), Kohona said.