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On the Death of
Velupillai Prabhakaran
Tamil doubts over rebel leader's death
Alastair Lawson,
BBC. 18 May 2009
 The
Sri Lankan military has released pictures of Tamil Tiger leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran which it says prove conclusively that he is
dead. The photos said to show Prabhakaran's body have not convinced
everyone
State and private stations aired footage of what they said was the
body of Prabhakaran, along with what looked like his Tamil Tiger
identity card and tag.
The army says his body has been positively identified with DNA
testing.
But rebel sympathisers say questions remain about when and how he
and other rebel leaders were killed, and over apparently
contradictory statements in relation to his reported death.
Some among Sri Lanka's Tamil community and the influential Tamil
diaspora doubt whether the rebel leader really is dead.
"The government is eager to present this as its Ceausescu moment -
with photographs of the body of the tyrant widely released to give
the impression that a defining moment has been reached," one
Colombo-based diplomat told the BBC - drawing an analogy with the
filmed execution of the Romanian dictator in December 1989.
"But there are questions surrounding Prabhakaran's identity tag. Is
it really credible that a man reputed to have numerous lookalike
doubles to avoid capture by the army would really carry this around
with him?"
The army says Prabhakaran's bullet-ridden body was found on the
banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, his last stronghold in north-east
Sri Lanka on Tuesday morning. Earlier it said his body was found on
Monday morning.
Army spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said the rebel leader had been
shot in scrubland - probably in fierce fighting.
That statement contradicted an earlier announcement - made on state
television but never verified by the army - that Prabhakaran's badly
burnt body was discovered on Monday.
It said Prabhakaran had been killed after he was ambushed by
commandos as he made a desperate attempt to break through government
lines in an ambulance. He had been badly burnt when his vehicle
burst into flames, it said.
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