Tamil Tiger-Supporter Pleads Guilty in Brooklyn

February 9, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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CADMAN PLAZA EAST (AP) — A Canadian man in a Brooklyn court has admitted attempting to buy sophisticated technology for the now-defeated Tamil Tiger insurgents in Sri Lanka.

Prosecutors say Ramanan Mylvaganam sought to obtain about $22,000 worth of submarine design software and night vision equipment for the separatist group, designated by the United States as a terrorist organization in 1997.

Government forces defeated the Tamil insurgency in 2009 to end more than 25 years of civil war.

Mylvaganam pleaded guilty in a federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Five of Mylvaganam’s co-defendants previously pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in connection with their support for the Tamil Tigers.

Two years ago in Brooklyn federal court, four Tamil Tiger supporters were sentenced to a combined 90 years in prison. Nadarasa Yogarasa, Sahilal Sabaratnam, Thiru-thanikan Thanigasalam and Sathajhan Sarachandran had pleaded guilty in 2009 to providing material support to terrorists.

Sarachandran received 26 years behind bars; Sabaratnam and Than-igasalam each 25 years; Yogarasa got a 14-year term.

The FBI lured the pair from Canada in 2006 to a meeting in New York with undercover agents posing as arms dealers. They were arrested after allegedly agreeing to a shipment of 10 surface-to-air missiles and 500 AK-47s.