Eventually Srilankan Tamil Leader Killed

Monday, 18 May 2009

The elusive and feared Prabhakaran had led the Tigers since the mid-1970s

The leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is dead, the Sri Lankan military has said.

The announcement on state television came shortly after the military said it had surrounded Prabhakaran in a tiny patch of jungle in the north-east.

The head of the Sri Lankan army Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka said the military had defeated the rebels and "liberated the entire country".

The claims cannot be verified as reporters are barred from the war zone.

"Today we finished the work handed to us by the president to liberate the country from the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," Gen Fonseka said in the broadcast.

He said troops were working to identify Prabhakaran's body from among the dead.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo: "The military say he was trying to escape in an ambulance"

Sri Lankan forces had routed the rebels in the past few weeks, over-running their territory and bringing the 26-year war to its conclusion.

The broadcast quoted military officials as saying Prabhakaran was killed along with two of his deputies.

It said Prabhakaran, his intelligence chief Pottu Amman and Soosai, the head of the rebels' naval wing, were shot dead in an ambush in the Mullivaikal district while trying to escape the war zone in an ambulance.

Earlier, at least three senior rebel leaders were killed, including Prabhakaran's eldest son, Charles Anthony, the military said.

State TV broadcast images of what it said was Charles Anthony's body.

Military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara confirmed Prabhakaran's death, saying 250 Tamil Tigers were also killed overnight.

BBC News