Terrorist financing lawsuit involving Tamil alleged fundraisers for Tigers allowed by federal judge to proceed

Following a year-long investigation, a complaint was filed in October 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against U.S. hedge fund manager Jesuthasan Rajaratnam and his son Rajakumara Rajaratnam for alleged terrorist financing activity involving the Sri Lankan terrorist group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). The lawsuit, Krishanthi v. Rajaratnam et al., 09-cv-5395 was filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act by family members who lost loved ones and survivors of bombings committed by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

The lawsuit alleges that the men directly sent money and also used their charitable foundation, the Rajaratnam Family Foundation, to provide millions of dollars in funding to organizations that supported the Tamil Tigers.

U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh is now allowing that lawsuit to proceed on the counts of aiding and abetting, intentionally facilitating and/or recklessly disregarding crimes against humanity in violation of international law and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Read what Motley Rice anti-terrorism attorney Mike Elsner, who represents the plaintiffs, has had to say about terrorist financing and the Tamil Tigers lawsuit.

Read more about the Tamil Tigers lawsuit in a full article featured in the New Jersey Law Journal.

Read about how anti-terrorism attorneys and human rights lawyers fight on behalf of terror victims and seek to disrupt terrorists' international fundraising efforts through anti-terrorism litigation.