U.S. fingerprint database used to identify suspected Tamil rebels

U.S. fingerprint database used to identify suspected Tamil rebels

Adrian Lam / Postmedia News files

RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency officers search the freighter Ocean Lady at dock at Ogden Point in Victoria.

TORONTO • The United States has told Canadian authorities that two migrants who arrived off the B.C. coast in 2009 aboard a smuggling ship are suspected Tamil rebels, according to a senior American counter-terrorism official.<p class="npBlock npPostContent">

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified the suspected rebels during fingerprint checks of 76 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who sailed to Canada from Southeast Asia two years ago aboard the cargo ship Ocean Lady.

The database searches “identified two subjects as known or suspected terrorists and members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,” John Cohen, principal deputy co-ordinator for counterterrorism, told the U.S. House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.

He said the Canada Border Services Agency had worked with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement attaché at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa to identify the men using their fingerprints, which were fed into a DHS database called NPPD/US-VISIT.

The two migrants flagged as suspected rebels were in the system because they had applied for U.S. visas in 2008, he said. The information was shared pursuant to an existing agreement between CBSA and DHS. “Both subjects were denied asylum in Canada.”

Mr. Cohen cited the case as an example of successful international information sharing during his testimony to U.S. lawmakers on Sept. 13. His comments had gone unreported in Canada until now.

The Ocean Lady was the first of two migrant ships that ferried almost 600 Sri Lankans to Canada from Thailand and Indonesia in 2009 and 2010. Both the Ocean Lady and the MV Sun Sea were organized by criminal syndicates based in Bangkok.

The arrival of the ships prompted the Conservatives to draft an anti-human smuggling bill that critics say unfairly targets would-be refugees who flee to Canada aboard ships. But the government says the measures are needed to deter human smugglers, who charge tens of thousands of dollars for passage to Canada on unsafe vessels.

Hundreds of Sri Lankans boarded human smuggling ships after Sri Lankan government forces defeated the Tamil Tigers rebels in 2009. Some were former members of the rebel group, including a handful of those who arrived in Canada.

The RCMP arrested four suspected organizers of the Ocean Lady in June. An investigation into the Sun Sea organizers is still underway. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said this summer as many as four “fairly advanced” attempts to smuggle migrants to Canada by sea had been disrupted in the past year and smugglers were continuing to collect down payments.

National Post

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