Sri Lankan man owned ship that smuggled Tamil migrants to Canada: Crown
VANCOUVER, B.C. — A Sri Lankan man accused of human smuggling was the owner of the rickety cargo ship that transported hundreds of Tamil migrants from Thailand to British Columbia, a Crown prosecutor said in his final arguments Friday.
Charles Hough told the jury the man, Kunarobinson Christhurajah, rented office space in 2008 and 2009 under a fake name in Bangkok for the Sun & Rashiya Co., which owned the MV Sun Sea.
Hough said while the defence had argued that Christhurajah had divested himself of the company by the time the vessel travelled across the Pacific in 2010, the man’s behaviour doesn’t match that argument.
“The evidence in this case is consistent with Mr. Christhurajah being the owner of the ship, in essence,” said Hough.