A man accused of using his university studies as a cover for terrorist activities has been awarded a $5,000 entrepreneurial prize from Wilfrid Laurier University.
In 2006, Suresh Sriskandarajah was arrested in Kitchener, Ont., after U.S. prosecutors accused him of working to help Tamil Tiger fighters in Sri Lanka.
Sriskandarajah is accused of money laundering, helping to buy military software and communications equipment, and using students in Canada to smuggle goods into Sri Lanka.
He is still wanted in the U.S. but he has been freed on bail until his extradition hearings, reports The Globe and Mail.
At the time of his arrest, Sriskandarajah was a student at the University of Waterloo.
He joined Laurier's MBA program last year and recently became the first and only winner of the "CIBC leaders of entrepreneurship award."
In a short statement to the Waterloo Record, a local newspaper, Sriskandarajah said he fears the publicity will hurt his future job prospects.
"Education is important to me and my supportive family," he said.
"Therefore I decided to return to school to make the best use of my free time with an optimistic hope for the future."
A spokesman for Wilfrid Laurier University said the school adheres to the legal principle of the "presumption of innocence," reports The Globe.
As many as 65,000 people have been killed in the Tamil Tigers' two-decade war with the Sri Lankan government.
A ceasefire was brokered in 2002 but some of the fiercest violence has occurred since then.
The Tamil Tigers are considered a terrorist organization by Canada and the United States.
Canada added the Tamil Tigers to its official list of terrorist organizations in April. The U.S. added the group to its own list in 1997.
