By Mata Press Service

Allan Rock, the former Canadian justice minister is under attack by the Sri Lankan government and newspapers in Colombo for his alleged links to the Tamil Tiger terror group.

Rock, who was an advisor to the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on Sri Lanka is close to “top level international agents of the Liberation Tiger Tamil Eelam [LTTE], the Colombo-based Sunday Standard reported in a front page article.

“According to our sources in Canada, there is a very close friendship between Allan Rock and lots of LTTE front organisations and their agents, who are directly involved in raising  funds for the LTTE in the Tamil Diaspora of Canada,” the paper said. It published a photograph of Rock with two men identified as friends of “Waterloo Suresh”.

Waterloo Suresh or Suresh Sriskandarajah, a University of Waterloo engineering graduate was arrested in Ontario last August during a U.S. anti-terror probe.

Court papers stated he used his student status to mask his work for the Tamil Tigers terrorist organization and recruited other students to act as couriers to smuggle equipment to Sri Lanka, U.S. authorities allege.

Media reports described the 26-year-old, of Waterloo, Ont., as having worked in Canada to aid the victims of the 2004 tsunami, being an accomplished athlete and academically gifted, and having completed his electrical engineering degree on two scholarships.

He is wanted in New York to face charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He is accused of researching and acquiring aviation equipment, submarine and warship design software, communications equipment and, from a British Columbia company, night-vision equipment.

He also allegedly laundered money for the LTTE, which has fought for two decades for a mono-ethnic Tamil separate state. He is one of at least four Canadian men of Tamil descent who have been arrested in the probe. Three men were arrested in New York after a meeting to buy anti-aircraft missiles, machine guns and other military weapons, the FBI says in court records.

Rock is under attack in Sri Lanka after claiming that the Sri Lankan army is actively helping a breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers to recruit child soldiers. He made the statement after a 10-day visit to Sri Lanka last year triggering protests and denunciations by government officials.

The newspaper report and photographs has rekindled the controversy just as Rock’s final report is to be delivered to the United Nations. A Government spokesman censured Rock saying, “There are inherent weaknesses in his analysis of the subject and the inquiry procedure he had adopted is not up to internationally accepted methodologies,”

The leader of the leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna parliamentary team, Vimal Weerawansa said they fully rejected Alan Rock’s report that accused Sri Lanka’s Army of complicity with a rival break away guerilla team of the Tamil Tigers to recruit child soldiers.

Other Sri Lankan politicians accused Rock and his Liberal party of being Tamil Tiger sympathizers saying they got votes by supporting the terror group’s activities in Canada.

The previous Liberal government barred the LTTE from fundraising in Canada in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks but did not ban membership in the LTTE.

Last year Canada’s new Conservative government outlawed the LTTE barring Canadians from supporting or participating in the group. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, better known by the acronym LTTE, is already proscribed as a terrorist organization by the United States, Britain, India, Australia and Malaysia. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said that the ruling was partly motivated by reports of the LTTE allegedly raising funds in the 300,000-strong Canadian Tamil community through coercion.

According to some estimates, almost one-third of the Tamil Tigers war chest -- estimated at up toC$46 million -- is raised in Canada each year through front organizations, coercion and the drug trade.

Meanwhile, the Colombo-based Sunday Standard which made the accusation of Rock’s links to Tamil Tiger sympathizers said “Allan Rock and top level party (Liberal) representatives including former Prime Minister Paul Martin were at a recent event which was also attended By Canada-based LTTE fundraisers Parthi Kandawel, Theepan Vigneswaran, Senthoo, Sukeevan Kailayapathy and Suthan.”

“We have more information about this event and their friendship,” the paper said with elaborating.