COLOMBO: Sri Lankan State TV on Tuesday showed the body of the slain Tamil Tiger Supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, even as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) asserted that he was alive and well.
Dropping its reluctance to officially confirm the death of the Tiger chieftain in a shootout in north Sri Lanka on Monday, the government instructed state television channels “Rupavahini” and ITN to show footage of the dead Prabhakaran. He was in his green-stripped LTTE uniform and his eyes were wide open. The head was covered with a small towel, indicating that he had been shot or injured on the back of the head.
The channels showed Prabhakaran’s LTTE ID card, bearing the number 01543301002, and a dog tag bearing the inscription 0101B. These were recovered from his person, the commentator said.
The Defense Ministry said that troops of the 4th.Vijayabahu Regiment and 53 Division, had found the bullet-ridden body of Prabhakaran lying on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon.
The body was identified by Karuna, who was the LTTE’s commander for Battcialoa and Amparai till 2004, and who is now a minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government after defecting from the LTTE. The former media liaison officer of the LTTE, Thaya Master, who had recently surrendered to the Sri Lankan army, also identified the body of Prabhakaran.
LTTE CLAIMS PRABHAKARAN IS ALIVE
However, earlier in the day, head of the LTTE’s International Department, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, said that Prabhakaran was “alive and safe.” “He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people,” Pathmanathan said in a statement addressed to the grieving Tamil Diaspora.
NEGOTIATORS KILLED
Pathmanathan went on to charge that the LTTE’s surrender negotiators, B Nadesan and S Puleedevan, were shot dead in cold blood by the Sri Lankan forces when they, by prior agreement, were coming to the army field headquarters carrying white flags, to discuss the terms of surrender.
This amounted to a war crime, which the international community should take into account, the LTTE’s international plenipotentiary said.
mandatory cyanide
capsule missing
The LTTE chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, had made it mandatory for every man, woman and child in his outfit to wear a cyanide capsule around the neck, and die by biting through it, if there was any danger of being captured by the enemy.
But ironically, he himself was not wearing such a capsule, Brig Shavendra Silva, commander of the 58 Division, told a Sri Lankan government TV channel on Tuesday.
“Prabhakaran had sent thousands of young people to the grave by making them bite through the cyanide capsule, but he himself did not end it by consuming cyanide,” Karuna Amman pointed out.