Karuna was meant to be an LTTE mole which backfired, says Austin Fernando

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE’s attempt to use Karuna Amman as a mole to get government information to the separatist outfit failed miserably, said former Defence Ministry Secretary Austin Fernando during his submission to the Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee today.

Defence Secretary during the Ranil Wickremesinghe government’s peace accord with the LTTE and author of ‘My Belly is White: Reminiscences of a Peacetime Secretary of Defence’, Mr. Fernando further said that the story that two leading United National Party (UNP) Ministers were responsible for bringing Karuna Amman (alias Vinayagamoorthi Muralitheran, now a Minister in the Rajapaksa government) to the then government were not correct.

S.P. Thamilselvan who was the head of the LTTE political wing had attempted to use Karuna as a mole. However, after Karuna realized that Tiger leader Prabhakaran was waging a useless war, he had decided to split from the organization and seek refuge with the government, said Austin Fernando who was the Defence Secretary when the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe signed the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement (CFA) with the LTTE in February 2002.