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The special police team investigating last Friday's Borella LTTE rampage has said that most of the LTTE explosive experts are now in Colombo and in the suburbs employed as goldsmiths and silversmiths in various jewellery shops. Investigations have revelead that LTTE suicide bombers have infiltrated Colombo from Porathivu and Kockadacholi in the Batticaloa area. The Crime Detection Bureau (CDB) said that most of the explosive experts in Colombo and the suburbs were responsible for blowing up transformers in recent times. A special team has been assigned to trace LTTE explosive experts employed country-wide. Meanwhile, the CDB has arrested a private security officer and eight gold smiths employed at different jewellery shops in Colombo for their alleged involvement with the LTTE. The officer, employed by a private firm to guard the 16-perch block of land from where the LTTE mounted the bloody Friday attack was taken into custody. According to the owners of the land, a monthly payment of Rs. 7,000 is made to a private security firm which deploys the guard to prevent unauthorized persons entering the land, which they acquired in 1994. On the day of the incident, the security guard is alleged to have left the premises, allowing the LTTE to carry out their attack. The guard, during the interrogation, claimed that the terrorists had moved in after his departure at around 5.30 p.m. However, according to police, the terrorists could not have set up explosive devices and other weapons within 30 minutes. They had been there for at least a few hours and the security guard must have been aware of this, police sources said. Meanwhile, after discovering names and addresses in a trouser pocket of one of the suicide cadres killed during the incident has led the CDB to their supporters in a jwellery shop. Suspects from Batticaloa have established connections with the suicide squad. Police suspect that some of the members of the suicide squad had also been employed as goldsmiths. The involvment of goldsmiths in LTTE bombings in Colombo and areas outside the North and East provinces first came to light in August 1998 after the arrest of two suspects near a telecommunication facility at Kadawatha by the police. The suspects had explosives in their possession at the time of the arrest. However, during interrogation the suspects confessed that they were goldsmiths and were responsible for bombing telecommunications and Ceylon Electricity Board facilities at various places. They suspects also revealed that terrorists infiltrating from the north and east are employed in jewellery shops as goldsmiths and silversmiths in Colombo and the suburbs.
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