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VANCOUVER, Canada : Canadian authorities are investigating whether Sri Lankan rebels financed the passage of some 500 Tamil refugees to Canada last week, officials said before the start of detention hearings.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, speaking to The Globe and Mail daily in an article Monday, said passengers were charged up to 50,000 Canadian dollars (48,000 US dollars) for travel aboard the cargo ship MV Sun Sea.
Members of Canada's 300,000 Tamil community may have helped fund their passage and the outlawed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels -- regarded by Canada as a terrorist group -- could have financed the voyage, he said.
"Obviously (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) will follow every connection between the payment of money and those who received it," Toews told The Globe and Mail.
RCMP Constable Michael McLaughlin told AFP: "We're investigating a variety of offenses.
"The human smuggling aspect is an obvious avenue that we have to pursue. Financing would be a sidebar of this investigation," he explained.
Toews' spokesman Christopher McCluskey commented: "Human smuggling is a despicable crime and any attempts to abuse Canada's generosity for financial gain are utterly unacceptable."
All those aboard the MV Sun Sea have requested asylum since arriving in westernmost Canada on Friday, Toews also said.
Hearings to decide whether the Tamils will be detained or released pending their eventual asylum decision started in the afternoon.
It could take several years for the Immigration and Refugee Board to decide whether to allow the refugee claimants to remain in Canada or to order their deportation.
On Saturday, Canadian authorities said the estimated 490 migrants were in good condition, despite a three-month journey aboard the rusty 59-meter (194-foot) Thai-registered ship.
Canadian Tamils have urged their adopted country to accept the asylum seekers, saying that the minority group faces continued difficulties in Sinhalese-majority Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka's government has described the ship as a people-smuggling operation by the defeated Tamil Tigers.
Sri Lanka government forces last year ended decades of civil war by crushing the rebels in a bloody finale in which the United Nations says at least 7,000 civilians were killed.
Despite concerns about Sri Lanka's human rights record, Western nations ban the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization. The group was known for suicide bombings and use of child soldiers during its nearly four-decade fight for a separate Tamil homeland.
- AFP/vm
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