Sri Lanka charges Tamil Tiger leader for murder

The Sri Lankan authorities have filed indictment against the leader of the rebel Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prabakaran for the murder of former foreign minister, officials said Tuesday.

Officials from the Attorney General's Department said that Prabakaran and five other rebels were charged on Tuesday for the August 2005 murder of then Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

A fellow Tamil, Kadirgamar was gunned down near the swimming pool of his Colombo home by a LTTE gunman. Kadirgamar had led an international campaign against the rebels which resulted in several countries banning the rebel outfit.

The Colombo High Court in October 2002 sentenced Prabakaran for 200 years imprisonment for bombing the country's Central Bank building and killing about 100 people in January 1996 in trial held in absentia.

The Sri Lankan authorities have not been able to arrest the LTTE leader as he lives in the rebel hideout in the island's Northern Province.

Prabakaran's LTTE has been fighting the government troops since the mid-1980s to set up a separate homeland for the Tamil minority in the north and east, resulting in the killing of more than 70,000 people.

Source: xinhuanet.com