UK’s Home Secretary Priti Patel has been ordered by a secretive tribunal to review the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Daily Mail reported
The Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), an independent body set up under the 2000 Terrorism Act, ruled that the Home Secretary must consider taking the Tamil Tigers off the Government’s list of outlawed bodies.
The LTTE, founded in Sri Lanka in 1976. The UK banned the group, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in 2001.
But the Trans-national Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) brought a case against the Home Secretary over the ban, saying the Tamil Tigers are no longer engaged in terrorism.
However, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which assesses the terrorist threat in the UK, said the Tamil Tigers should stay banned because they have failed to renounce violence.
The POAC ruled that Ms Patel must review the ban, saying the grounds for renewing it were flawed.
The TGTE has mounted a separate bid in the Court of Appeal to get the ban automatically lifted.
The Home Office said: ‘We accept POAC’s judgment … and await the appellant’s final response on this. The LTTE remains a proscribed organisation at this time.’