Ken talks to 'front' for banned Tamil Tigers

The Mayor sought backing from the British Tamil Forum at the meeting in Harrow on Saturday, according to its spokesman.

The forum is accused by the Sri Lankan government of being a front for the Tamil Tigers, which wages an armed struggle for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka and is banned in Britain under anti-terrorism laws.

A spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission in London told the Standard that the High Commissioner, Kshenuka Senewiratne, wrote to Mr Livingstone "early last week" to express her "concerns" about his intention to speak to the forum.

"The British Tamil Forum is one of the main front organisations for the Tamil Tigers in the UK," the spokesman said. "We did not know whether the Mayor knew what the background to the meeting was so the High Commissioner wrote to inform him." Mr Livingstone never replied, the spokesman said.

At a previous meeting organised by the British Tamil Forum, at the Excel Centre, Docklands, on 27 November, a video message from the Tamil Tigers' leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, praising suicide bombing was played and a collection was taken for Tamil Tiger "martyrs". The meeting is the subject of a police anti-terror investigation.

The Tamil Tigers, officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, pioneered suicide bombing.

They have been responsible for numerous attacks in Sri Lanka, including a military assault on the country's main airport in 2001 which caught almost 50 British tourists in the crossfire.

Although indiscriminate violence has also been carried out by the Sri Lankan government, Tamil Tiger suicide attacks alone have killed around 1,600 people, including the Sri Lankan president and the Indian prime minister.

Suren Surendiran, a spokesman for the British Tamil Forum, said that last weekend's meeting was co-organised by the forum and a local Tamil Labour councillor, Thaya Iddaikadar.

"The forum was involved (in the organisation of the meeting)," he said. "About 20 per cent of the people at the meeting were from the British Tamil Forum and the rest were local Tamils."

Mr Surendiran said the Mayor was asked a question about the Sri Lankan High Commission's claims that the forum was a Tamil Tiger front. "He said the Metropolitan Police came under him and where there was a legitimate request for a legitimate event his office would always be supportive," Mr Surendiran said.

The Mayor also gave the forum his "personal commitment" that he would support its candlelit vigil in Trafalgar Square this summer to mark the 25th anniversary of "Black July," a massacre of Tamil civilians triggered by a Tamil Tiger attack on a military convoy.

About 1,000 Tamils were killed in this bloodshed, which is generally seen as the trigger for Sri Lanka's civil war. Mr Surendiran said the forum "shares the same aspirations as the Tamil Tigers, but we do not subscribe to their methodology". Mr Livingstone's campaign has been dogged by allegations that he is too closely linked to organisations which sympathise with terrorists.

Yesterday, the Standard told how he had appointed a former member of a banned Sikh terrorist organisation, Dabinderjit Singh, to the board of TfL.

Last week it emerged that one of Mr Livingstone's leading Muslim supporters is closely connected to the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Mr Livingstone's campaign was not available for comment.