The suit, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act, concerns the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), a non-profit that the U.S. Treasury Department shut down in 2007 for allegedly bankrolling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (aka Tamil Tigers), which the U.S. classified as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and as a specially designated global terrorist in 2001. TRO's assets were frozen and Americans were barred from dealing with it.

Between their founding in 1976 and their defeat by the Sri Lankan army in 2009, the Tigers killed thousands of civilians in a violent campaign marked by suicide bombings and assassinations whose goal was to establish a separate state for ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The suit, Krishanthi v. Rajaratnam, 09-cv-5395, was filed by more than two dozen Sri Lankan citizens who claim they lost family members or were themselves injured in five bombings carried out by the Tigers in Sri Lanka in later 2007 and early 2008. More...Discuss this story Published: Thu Sep 2 07:10:33 EDT 2010