The federal government gave $11 million in immigrant aid over the last seven years to a Toronto Tamil association linked to another group the Senate and the U.S. government allege supports a terrorist organization in Sri Lanka, government records show.

The Tamil Eelam Society of Canada has received $1.3 million from the Citizenship and Immigration Department for immigrant "settlement and adaptation" since 1994 and a further $9.7 million in "contributions for language instruction for newcomers to Canada," documents prepared by the Receiver General show.

The president of the Tamil Elam Society confirmed yesterday that his group is a member of the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT), which the special Senate committee on security and intelligence said in 1999 is a "political and benevolent" front group for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in a current deportation case involving the former head of the World Tamil Movement, which also supports the Tamil Tigers, has received evidence that the Tamil Tigers have used bombings, suicide attacks, assassinations, murders, torture and rape in their campaign to create an independent Tamil Eelam state in Sri Lanka.

The U.S. State Department has also listed both FACT and the World Tamil Movement as fronts for the Tamil Tigers and in 1997 designated the Tamil Tigers as a foreign terrorist organization.

Alliance MP Keith Martin asked the government in the Commons yesterday whether it intends to add FACT to a list of known terrorist organizations whose assets Finance Minister Paul Martin announced were being frozen in Canada in response to the terror attacks. The government intends to introduce legislation that will allow it to seize terrorist assets, if there are any, in Canada.

Justice Minister Anne McLellan said the government will consider new information about suspected terrorist groups "on a case-by-case basis."

Sitha Sittampalam, president of the Tamil Eelam Society of Canada, confirmed in an interview his organization and the World Tamil Movement are both members of FACT, but denied the federation finances the Tamil Tigers.

"FACT is simply a political lobbying group ... for the cause of our freedom struggle there (in Sri Lanka)," he said.

Mr. Sittampalam said he believes the World Tamil Movement raises funds only to be used for medical aid and humanitarian purposes.

The Supreme Court of Canada is now considering the deportation case of Manickavasagam Suresh, a former head of the World Tamil Movement who is fighting a 1995 deportation order on the grounds he will be tortured if he is returned to Sri Lanka. Mr. Suresh, who entered Canada in 1991 claiming refugee status, was ordered out of Canada because of intelligence reports there were reasonable grounds to believe he was linked to a terrorist organization or had engaged in terrorism.

Mr. Sittampalam said the $9.7 million the government gave the Tamil Eelam Society for language instruction went toward overhead, staff, computers and teaching costs at four English-as-second-language centres the society maintains in Toronto. He said other immigrant groups also use the schools.

The Tamil leader blamed the allegations concerning terrorist funding on "propaganda" from the Sri Lankan government.