British Charity Commission confirm TRO involvement with the LTTE

(November, 30, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) A report published (in August 2007) by the Charity Commission in the United Kingdom titled ‘The Home Office & HM Treasury’s Review of safeguards to protect the charitable sector (England and Wales) from terrorist abuse and the Charity Commission’s response to the consultation’ has made reference on the closure of Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation in the UK.

‘We also intervened effectively to secure the assets of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) where our investigation revealed that the trustees had little, if any, control over money that was sent to Sri Lanka for relief work. Further investigation concluded that the charity’s representatives had liaised with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000) to make decisions about where funds should be applied’ stated the report.

The Charity Commission had previously asserted that the TRO was poorly managed and the trustees had little control over the money sent to Sri Lanka. The lengthy investigation carried out following intervention had further revealed TRO’s closer links with the proscribed LTTE.
The Charity Commission is a non-ministerial government department that operates independently and they regulate over 190,000 registered charities. There are also about 100,000 other unregistered charities which are subject to differing degrees of regulation and/or support from the Commission.

Since the clamp down on the TRO, its front line activists have formed another charity in the name of ‘White Pigeon’ which is functioning as the UK arm of TRO in the LTTE controlled Vanni. White Pigeon’s founder and present chairman is Dr N Sathiyamoorthy also known as Dr Moorthy was the chairman of TRO in the UK at the time of Charity Commission’s regulatory intervention which lead to its closure.

Photo: Dr N Sathiyamoorthy known as Dr Moorthy