Malaysia not confirming news of LTTE chief arrest

Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Monday refused to confirm whether the new LTTE chief was arrested in his country.

Reports from Colombo last week said that LTTE's new chief Selvarasa Pathmanathan was arrested outside a Kuala Lumpur hotel and taken to Sri Lanka transiting via Bangkok.

However, Prime Minister Najib said he did not know and did not have the facts. "I do not know. I do not have the facts," he said.

Sri Lanka's Defence Affairs Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella had said that Pathmanathan was arrested from a South East Asian nation on Thursday.

Malaysian newspapers reported the incident from Colombo but did not carry the comments of local officials on the issue.

Fifty-four-year-old Pathmanathan, who was named by slain LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran as the new head of the International Relations of the outfit in February, named himself as the LTTE chief after the death of Prabhakaran.

Pathamnathan is also wanted by Interpol in connection with the former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination by a Tamil suicide bomber in 1991.