Amnesty International has expressed the view that the accused may not have received a fair trial as the law under which they were charged, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, contravenes several international standards, including holding trials in camera and the non-disclosure of the identity of witnesses.
Of the 41 original suspects in the case, 12 have either been killed by Indian police in shoot-outs or committed suicide and the other three, including LTTE leader V Prabhakaran and Tiger intelligence chief Pottu Amman are in northern Sri Lanka.
In Sri Lanka, the Colombo High Court issued warrants on 27 January for the arrest of Mr Prabhakaran and nine others in the Central Bank bomb case. They are indicted for destroying the Central Bank building in January 1996 and killing 78 people.
On the other side of the planet, LTTE’s World Tamil Movement administrator Manickavasagam Suresh facing deportation to Sri Lanka was granted a temporary reprieve by a Canadian Court on 19 January. Mr Suresh, accepted as a Convention refugee, is in a Toronto jail since October 1995, after the Canadian government declared him persona non-grata as belonging to a group engaged in terrorism. The government decision was upheld by the Canadian Federal Court in August 1997. LTTE activists in Canada have been accused of crime and violence against opponents.
Although the deportation order was not revoked by the new decision, the Ontario Provincial Court advised the Canadian government to find a third country to accept Mr Suresh. Earlier, Amnesty International urged Canada to avoid refoulement - returning an asylum-seeker to a hostile state or imminent danger. Observers dismiss Sri Lankan government’s assurance that the LTTE leader will not suffer torture or other degrading treatment in the light of evidence of widespread torture.