Three Suspected members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) who were arrested in Malaysia on May 15th 2014 were handed over to Sri Lankan Authorities it is learnt.The three persons arrested in three different places in Selangor Province had been registered as refugees with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Malaysian authorities deported the three to Sri Lanka where the trio was taken into custody by Sri Lankan officials. Details of the three persons were provided by Sri Lankan officials to their Malaysian counterparts on the basis of information supplied by Nanthgopan senior deputy leader of the LTTE faction led by Perinbanayagam Sivaparan alias Nediyavan.Nanthagopan was earlier arrested with the cooperation of officials in Iran and Malaysia and handed over to Sri Lanka.Nanthagopan is currently being held and questioned at the Police Terrorism Investigation Division(TID)headquarters in Colombo.

Following is an earlier news story filed by AFP about the arrests

Three men suspected of being Tamil Tigers have been arrested in Malaysia, a top police official said Sunday, accusing them of attempting to revive the Sri Lankan separatist group.

Khalid Abu Bakar, inspector-general of police, said the trio, who had been in Malaysia since 2004, were arrested in multiple raids in the central Selangor state on May 15, and were being held under the Immigration Act.

“They used Malaysia as a base to collect funds, spread their propaganda, and were attempting to revive the defunct terrorist group at the international level,” he said in a statement.

Police also seized propaganda materials of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and some money in various foreign currencies.

There is a small but affluent Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora living in multi-racial Malaysia after migrating from their homeland many decades ago.

Khalid said they were registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and so had been able to remain in Malaysia since 2004 without visas.

“We will not allow the country to be used as a place for them to hide or conduct any terror activities in the country or on foreign soil,” he said.

Sri Lanka’s military killed Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran on May 18, 2009 and declared an end to 37 years of armed conflict.

There have been no major attacks blamed on the group since.

The Tigers, who during the height of their power controlled nearly a third of Sri Lanka’s territory, were known for their trademark suicide bombings.

Meanwhile, in the past few weeks Malaysian security forces have made a series of arrests involving foreign terror suspects and foiled a plot to attack foreign missions in two Indian cities.

Police have also launched an investigation into whether Al-Qaeda-linked Somali rebels were seeking to set up a base in the Southeast Asian country after a suspected insurgent was arrested.

Malaysian courts on Friday charged three men and a woman from the Muslim-majority country over promoting terrorism in strife-torn Syria.

COURTESY:Agence France-Presse