THE chairman of a Hindu temple in Wembley who was kidnapped by the Tamil Tigers and held hostage for two months has spoken this week of his ordeal.

Rajasingham Jeyadevan, 50, who runs the Eelapatheeswarar Aalayam Temple in Union Road, Wembley, visited his native Sri Lanka with a friend in January to help with the tsunami relief effort. A qualified accountant from Edgware who has lived in Britain for 30 years, Mr Jeyadavan contacted the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) hoping to discuss aid to the Tamil-administered areas of the island. Mr Jeyadevan and his friend, AK Vivekamanthan, were staying in a guest house with LTTE minders when events took a turn for the worse.

He said: "We were promised a meeting with Mr Castro The Tigers' spokesman on Finance and International Affairs but we were told he was too busy and after days of waiting, nothing was happening. Then at about 4pm, a car pulled up with dark windows and a man got out and told us Castro would now see us. We got in and they took us on a long drive of 35 or 40 miles. We knew his office was only nearby, so were feeling more and more uneasy."

What the pair did not know was that a rival faction at home, jealous of Mr Jeyadevan's wealth and his successful temple, had complained to the Tigers' leadership about him in advance of his visit. Although Mr Jeyadevan is a Tamil nationalist, he had resisted LTTE influence on his temple after the party were declared illegal by the Terrorism Act.

He said: "We were taken to a derelict compound with a high fence. We got out and had no idea where we were. The man told us to co-operate and that he had heard of our conduct in London. He kept on asking us for a statement, but I had no idea what he meant. Then he went away again and left us under the guard of four soldiers."

With no contact to the outside world, the two men were left for 42 days, and were repeatedly grilled by interrogators from Tamil intelligence. They slept in small rooms with holes in the roof infested by grubs and insects, and the water tank they had to drink from had a dead rat in it. Mr Jeyadevan was denied the drugs he needs for his gland problem, and became very ill.

"It dragged on and on. On February 16 five weeks into their captivity we were told we would be released but there would be conditions. They wanted the temple transferred to a nominee's name and we both had to give our consent. It was evening and we were sitting there in lamplight, so I could hardly read the document. But I knew it would have no legal standing and by then I would have signed anything. They said they could not shoot me because of the Geneva Convention, but they threatened that they would put a snake on my body and let it bite me, so no-one could ever prove anything."

The document Mr Jeyadevan signed handed over his Wembley temple to a trust run by Nagendram Seevaratnam, a Tiger-supporting owner of another temple in Tooting. Mr Vivekamanthan was then released and told to carry out the order, while Mr Jeyadevan was kept in solitary confinement for a further 20 days. During this time he went on hunger strike and took overdoses of steroid pills because he was "literally crying with pain" from his chest. He ate only one meal in almost three weeks. Eventually, after the temple was transferred and the British Foreign Office applied pressure, he was driven to a border post and set free after 62 days.

He said of his ordeal: "I don't think I can ever return to Sri Lanka, at any rate, not without a UN escort. I went with good intentions to see those fellows - I am patriotic to my community and my mother and brother died in the war. But the Tamil Tigers want to take over all Tamil organisations, wherever they are. We cannot let them do this and I do not want to see this happen to another Tamil."

L Last Thursday (April 7) the High Court ruled that the document Mr Jeyadevan signed under duress was invalid, and Mr Seevaratnam's supporters were made to hand back control of the temple to him and the other trustees. A police investigation is ongoing.