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MV SUN SEA MIGRANT INFORMATION STOLEN FROM CTC OFFICE


Toronto police are investigating the theft of a computer containing the names of Sri Lankan migrants who arrived in Canada last month aboard the smuggling ship MV Sun Sea.


The computer was stolen during a break-in at the head office of the Canadian Tamil Congress, which had been keeping records of the migrants and their families in Canada and Sri Lanka.


As police searched the office Sunday, CTC spokesman David Poopalapillai told reporters outside he fears Sri Lankan intelligence agents could be responsible.

Some of the Sun Sea migrants have said they could testify as witnesses to war crimes committed during the final stage of the South Asian island’s civil war, Poopalapillai pointed out.

“It could be the work of the Sri Lankan intelligence unit,” he said. “Sri Lanka is trying their level best to prevent any war crimes investigation in the future. The families might be intimidated and the war crimes witnesses would back off.”


The RCMP has not shared the names of the Sun Sea migrants with the Sri Lankan government, which has been widely condemned over its human-rights record.


The migrants’ identities are also the subject of a publication ban ordered by the Immigration and Refugee Board. The ban was imposed to protect the refugee claimants and their families in Sri Lanka from reprisals.

Poopalapillai said the break-in could also be a hate crime by someone upset at the mass arrival of the migrants. He said the office, which has been helping the migrants, had received hateful phone calls and emails on the issue.

The break-in happened between 6:30 p.m. Saturday, when the last volunteer left the office, and 9:30 a.m. Sunday, when another volunteer returned in the morning and found the door open and the office ransacked.

“The premise had signs of forced entry and a quantity of electronic equipment was taken,” Toronto police said in a written statement. Police were canvassing the industrial strip mall for witnesses Sunday afternoon.

The theft appeared to be a “targeted job,” Poopalapillai said, adding the thief did not touch an LCD panel television but took the front reception computer and attempted to steal several hard drives but eventually left them. A room used by volunteers working on the Sun Sea case was also ransacked, he said.


The break-in is the latest twist in the story of the Sun Sea, a cargo ship that crossed the Pacific from Thailand carrying a load of would-be refugees from Sri Lanka.


The group said it was assessing which information was on the stolen items.

In the meantime, it said it would attempt to contact the families to let them know their identities may have fallen into the wrong hands.


“The biggest worry about this is the MV Sun Sea information,” Poopalapillai said. “We are worried about the safety and the security of the families back in Sri Lanka.”


He emphasized his suspicions about who was responsible were only allegations at this point, The Globe and Mail reports.
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