Three men arrested for alleged affiliation with terrorist group

Three subjects were arrested Sunday at 190 Shetland Drive, Amherst, in connection with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Amherst Chief of Police John Moslow said he has been working with the Joint Terrorism Task Force for several months which led up to Sunday's arrest.

Thileepan Patpanathan and Sujeepan Patpanathan have been charged with bribery of a public officer - an immigration officer. Also charged was Vijayashathar Patpanathan with alien smuggling, conspiracy to bribe a public officer and providing materials to support terrorists.

Late last week Amherst was alerted that a search warrant would be needed for the address at Shetland Drive. A detective and two officers assisted in Sunday's arrests.

According to the FBI, eight defendants have been arrested by the FBI and charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization and related offenses.

The FBI's Eastern District of New York reported the arrests on Monday, following an investigation involving more than 20 of the FBI's field offices, including Buffalo.

Two complaints were unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn charging eight defendants with multiple crimes, including conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization - the LTTE.

Four of the defendants were arrested on Long Island on Aug. 19 after three of them traveled to New York from Canada to attempt

to purchase from an agent acting in an undercover capacity Russian-made missiles, missile launchers and other weapons, reportedly to be used by the LTTE in its rapidly escalating conflict against the Sri Lankan military. These four defendants were acting at the direction of senior LTTE leadership in Sri Lanka.

In the second complaint, multiple defendants are charged with providing material support to the LT T E . The complaint also charges that the defendants attempted to obtain classified information, conspired to bribe U.S. public officials in an effort to remove the LTTE from the U.S. State Department's list of

Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and dealt in illegal financial transactions with LTTE.

As alleged in both complaints, the defendants are closely connected with LTTE leadership in Sri Lanka.

The investigation leading to the arrests was conducted by the Newark Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force. The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the U.S. Department of State; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police National Security Program; and British law enforcement authorities were also involved.