Biography
Pratheepan Thavaraja, Nachimuthu Socrates, Murugesu Vinayagamoorthy, Vijayshanthar Patpanathan, Gaspar Raj Maria Paulian, Namasivaya Viswanathan, and an unknown individual conspired to provide resources, currency, training, and false documents to the Tamil Tigers. Paulian met with a prospective financial contributor to discuss bribing a State Department official to remove the Tamil Tigers from the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Socrates wrote a $500 check to an informant posing as a State Department official and then gave $5,000 to another person he believed was also a State Department official. In addition, Socrates relayed to a Tamil Tigers member the contents of what he believed was a classified document purchased from State Department officials.
Case characteristics: FBI sting operation, FBI confidential informant. Organization referenced in charging documents: Tamil Tigers.
Case data and description from The Intercept's Trial and Terror project (Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams), licensed CC BY-NC. Source: https://github.com/theintercept/trial-and-terror-data
Custody precision review October 13, 2026: The appellate opinion documents Indonesian detention in January 2007, followed by extradition and a January 18, 2007 initial US appearance. It does not provide the exact initial Indonesian admission day. January remains month precision and the unsupported 2,867-day total is cleared; the court appearance is not substituted for the earlier custody start. An exact initial detention day and identifiable photograph remain unresolved.
