Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been killed, Sri Lankan officials and state-run media have said, according to aljazeere.net.
Sri Lankan officials said on Monday that he was among more than 250 fighters killed, along with his son and other senior officials, as government troops captured the last sliver of territory held by the separatist group.
At an official ceremony in the capital, Colombo, Sri Lanka’s defence secretary declared the end of the 26-year conflict with the LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers.
– We have successfully ended the war, Gotabhaya Rajapakse told Mahinda Rajapakse, the president and commander-in-chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces.
Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from Colombo, said that it was unclear how Prabhakan had been killed, if indeed he was dead.
