'Army ordered to kill surrendering LTTE leaders'

Colombo, Dec 14: Security forces killed three surrendering LTTE leaders on the orders of the Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary and the President's brother, alleges former army chief Gen Sarath Fonseka.

Speaking to an interview to the weekly The Sunday, Fonseka said, "Three leaders of the LTTE had accepted an offer to surrender during the last days of the war in May 2009 but were then killed.

Fonseka claimed that communication between the LTTE leaders, Norwegian negotiators, Basil Rajapaksa, brother and senior adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was never conveyed to him though he was supervising the final stages of the war.

"Later, I learnt that Basil had conveyed this information to Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, who in turn spoke with Brigadier Shavendra Silva, Commander of the Army's 58th Division, giving orders not to accommodate any LTTE leaders attempting surrender and that 'they must all be killed'," he said.

Fonseka also said Basil Rajapaksa and Gothabaya Rajapaksa used foreign intermediaries to convey a message to LTTE leaders who wished to surrender to walk out carrying a piece of white cloth.

"It was their idea," he said, claiming sometime between midnight on May 17 and the early hours of the next morning the three LTTE leaders and their families were shot dead.

OneIndia News