New LTTEleader Selvarajah Pathmanathan aka KP, who was arrested overseas and brought to Colombo on Thursday, has begun to divulge vital information about the LTTE and himself.

The Island learns that the entire operation was handled by Sri Lankans.

Sources described KP in captivity as rattled and co-operative, though he had been projected by the pro-LTTE media as a tough man.

Exactly where KP was arrested is not yet known. According to initial reports he was nabbed in Thailand, but the Thai press says the Thai government is unaware of any such arrest and has ordered a probe into the reports at issue. LTTE activists overseas insist that KP was arrested in Malaysia. They say a charter flight was used to bring him to Katunayake, from where he was flown to a secret location in a military helicopter.

A top defence official contacted for comment declined to reveal where KPhad been taken in and how he had been brought to Sri Lanka. "What matters now is that he is in Sri Lanka," the official said, "we took him and delivered him to the governmnet in one piece."

Asked repeatedly at a press briefing in Colomb yesterday where the arrest had been made, Defence Spokesman and Minister of Foreign Employment Promotions and Welfare Keheliya Rambukwella refused to go into specifics. He curtly said KPhad been arrested in a Southeast Asian country.

The Sri Lankan government has indicated its willingness to hand over KP to India in connection with the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and other violations of the Indian law.

Minister Rambukwella said the government would certainly let New Delhi have KP if a request to that effect was made. He said no such request had been made so far.

Sources said KP, now being questioned at an undisclosed location, was spilling the beans on his local financiers who helped the LTTE buy arms and ammunition.

The government, sources said, was banking on KP’s arrest to elicit infomation on the LTTE’s gun running and narcotics operations which pose a threat to the entire region.