The migrant smuggling ship ‘Ocean Lady’, intercepted off the West Coast of Canada by Canadian officials, carrying 76 Sri Lankan men is owned by the outlawed LTTE and previously smuggled weapons from North Korea to Sri Lanka, reported the Ottawa Citizen quoting an international expert on South Asia terrorism.

The ship may be the first wave of defeated LTTE fighters fleeing for safe haven after the end of Sri Lanka’s 25-year war, says another security expert.

Canada hosts the largest population of Sri Lankan Tamils outside of Sri Lanka, and has long been a key support base for the Tigers, which is on Canada’s official list of terrorist organizations, Ottawa Citizen said.

In a radio interview with ABC News in Australia on Saturday, Singapore-based Rohan Gunaratna said the ‘Ocean Lady’ is a freighter belonging to the LTTE.

“It is now clear that it is a Tamil Tiger-owned and -operated ship,” said Gunaratna, who heads Singapore’s International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research.

“Certainly, not all ships that are transporting people are managed by terrorists, but in the case of the Ocean Lady, it is a Tamil Tiger ship that had been used in the past to smuggle weapons from North Korea to Sri Lanka,” said Gunaratna.

The ship was intercepted off Vancouver Island on Oct. 16 by Canadian officers supported by the Canadian Forces and Canada Border Service Agency.

The Canadian Tamil Congress says the men are all ethnic Tamils fleeing persecution. But Gunaratna said “a number of individuals” have been identified as suspected Tigers.

His comments follow reports that one passenger has been identified as a 26-year-old man wanted by Sri Lanka for terrorism. It’s not clear if he is the same man apparently found with the logo of the Tigers tattooed on his body.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the government would take steps to deport any passengers with criminal or terrorist backgrounds, including members of the LTTE, which is outlawed in Canada.

The men are being held in Maple Ridge, B.C., and began appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board in Canada last week. One passenger with relatives in Canada was reportedly ordered released from custody. The others remain in custody pending interviews with Canadian border officials. Those freed are expected to make refugee claims.

“The LTTE has not given up on its programme of an independent homeland, and they will continue their campaign of violence from wherever they can re-establish themselves,” said Tom Quiggin an Ottawa terrorism expert.

“The LTTE, which deserves its description as a terrorist group, will no doubt be looking to move many of its senior leaders and fighters into well-known safe havens such as Canada”.

Intelligence and immigration authorities will have the shadow of the 1985 Air India disaster, a previous intelligence failure, looking over their shoulders as they try to identify this group and the many others that will follow them, he further said.

Meanwhile, National Post reporter Stewart Bell, who has written extensively on the LTTE, reports the ship, sailing under the false name of ‘Ocean Lady’, departed from India early last month, according to international shipping records.

After a stop in Mumbai on Aug. 31, the ship formerly known as the Princess Easwary sailed from the northwest Indian port of Mundra on Sept. 8. That was its last recorded port of call until it entered Canadian waters.