Suspected US head of Tamil Tigers pleads innocent

NEW YORK, June 4 (Reuters) The suspected head of the US branch of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers rebel group and four others pleaded not guilty today to charges of assisting a foreign terrorist organization.

Karunakaran Kandasamy is accused of heading the US branch of the Tamil Tigers and of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund its activities.

Imprisoned since his April 25 arrest, he faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted, federal prosecutors said.

The remaining defendants are charged with lesser offenses, including conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and bribing public officials, lawyers said.

The United States designates the Tamil Tigers as a foreign terrorist organization.

The rebels, known officially as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, have been fighting for decades for an independent homeland on the north and east of the teardrop-shaped island in the Indian Ocean.

Fighting has killed 68,000 people since 1983, including more than 4,000 in the past 16 months.

Prosecutors said the Tamil Tigers rely on sympathetic expatriates to raise money, get weapons and spread propaganda.

To coordinate these activities, the Tigers have established ''branches'' in at least 12 countries, including an office in the New York borough of Queens, prosecutors said in a complaint filed in US District Court in Brooklyn.

As director of the US branch, Kandasamy oversaw the organization's activities and fund-raising, prosecutors said.

REUTERS JK BST0106