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Tamil Tigers leader killed

18 May 2009 10:25 (UTC +04:00)

Sri Lanka â€“ APA. The leader of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was shot dead while trying to flee advancing troops, APA reports quoting AFP.
Prabhakaran was in a small convoy of a van and ambulance along with several close aides which tried to drive out of the battle zone, but was attacked and killed with two others inside the vehicle. Troops also found the bodies of Prabhakaran’s 24-year-old son Charles Anthony, the group’s political wing leader B. Nadesan, and the head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Peace Secretariat, S. Pulideevan. Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapakse, will open a new session of parliament on May Tuesday with an address that will officially mark the ending of the war.
The conflict has left tens thousands of people dead since the LTTE emerged in the 1970s, with all-out war breaking out in the early 1980s. The separatist rebels ran a de facto mini-state spanning a third of the island before the government began a major offensive two years ago.