An Aeronautical school run by a Malaysian, of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, in Malaysia, gives Jaffna youths training in flying as well as on aircraft maintenance engineering, agency news reports said yesterday(30Mar).

Dr. T. Dorai, Principal of Advance Aeronautics Training Centre located in Perak as well as in Ipoh, Malaysia, when questioned, by agency news services, on the potential security implications of giving flying lessons to the suspected LTTE cadres, had responded that the political affiliations of the trainees was not his concern.

Dr. Dorai said that their training centre conduct two types of aeronautical courses – Flying and Aircraft maintenance engineering course.

He said at present there are four students undergoing training in aircraft maintenance engineering and several others from Jaffna are soon expected to join to undergo flying training in training centre, an Asian Tribune news story filed from Kuala Lumpur said.

Dr. Dorai explained that students can follow one year training in his training centre and go to Scotland for another two years training to obtain the engineering degree. Or else the students can follow the course for two years in his training centre and go for a year to Scotland and complete the aircraft maintenance engineering degree

The AT story also said that Sri Lankan High Commission in Kula Lumpur was once concerned about why many Tamil students enrolled themselves for training in flying at Dr. Dorai's centre.

Dr. Dorai had told the AT that he had met the Political Secretary of the LTTE in 1998 in Paris (most probably Lawrence Tilakar) and discussed matters regarding the smuggling of arms and ammunition to the LTTE in Vanni. He said that at that time he was working in Nigeria, but he did not disclose whether he was involved in the smuggling of arms, the AT report added.