19 May,2009 02:17 PM IST | | PTI
With a pro-LTTE website raising questions over his death, the Sri Lankan army on Tuesday said Velupillai Prabhakaran's body has been found.
"Prabhakaran's body was found near Nandikadal lagoon (in the No Fire Zone)," military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said. He said Prabhakaran was in uniform and there were bullet wounds on his head.
Military officials, giving details of the encounter in which the LTTE chief was killed yesterday, said that Prabhakaran and his two top commanders, Pottu Amman and sea Tiger chief Soosai, drove out of their hideout in an armoured vehicle escorted by his armed cadres in an ambulance.
They tried to drive through the security cordon of army, triggering a two-hour battle which ended when troops targeted the vehicle with a rocket and later took out the bodies.
Prabhakaran's body, the officials said yesterday, bore burn marks apparently due to the direct impact of the rocket on the vehicle which was carrying the LTTE chief. However, the pro-rebel Tamilnet website claimed that Prabhakaran was still 'alive and safe'.
"I wish to inform the global Tamil community distressed witnessing the final events of the war that our beloved leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe," LTTE's International Relations head S Pathmanathan was quoted as saying by the website.
