To kill a king: Prabhakaran summarily executed?

May 21, 2009. There has been growing speculation that Velupillai Prabhakaran, the feared leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was executed at point-blank range by Sri Lankan Army special forces on the afternoon or evening of Monday May 18.

The strongest speculation is that Prabhakaran was executed with one or two gunshots in the back of the head, using a calibre and bullet-trajectory pre-planned to preserve the visual identity of his cadaver, while demonstrating unambiguously that he was dead.

Roachbane does not know if these rumours are necessarily the truth, but they are intriguing - some would say compelling.

Roachbane has also, however, received suggestions that, in contrast to the claims of special forces involvement, Prabhakaran was in fact shot by his own bodyguards to prevent capture.

An admission that Prabhakaran is dead, and a tribute to his martyrdom, are said to be being prepared for publication on the “Tamilnet” website. However, there is fierce internal debate over whether to publish it, or whether Prabhakaran is indeed dead.

The fatal shot

The most interesting speculations suggest that Prabhakaran and his immediate coterie – no more than a handful of bodyguards and functionaries – "encountered" special forces, acting under independent command, but operating in close conjunction with the 58th Division of the Sri Lankan army, on a small island in the Nandithal Lagoon.

According to these suggestions, special forces personnel, acting in direct liaison with senior command in Colombo, confirmed the capture of Prabhakaran and were instructed to complete the operation according to a pre-specified codeword.

Prabhakaran was made to lie face down on the ground and, with his eyes open and still not knowing his fate, shot through the back of the head.

The bullet was fired in well-lit conditions to ensure accuracy. A low-calibre bullet from a hand-held pistol was used, with an experienced assassin pulling the trigger. The angle of shot was from the back of the head, at approximately level of the lower jaw, upwards at an angle through the centre of the brain and out through the forehead.

This angle was chosen in advance of the operation. The goal was to leave Prabhakaran’s face intact, enabling objective visual identification, while leaving a clearly visible exit wound above the line of his eyes to convince viewers he was dead.

The small-calibre bullet was chosen to ensure that only a limited amount of Prabhakaran’s skull, and none of his face, would be blown out by the exiting bullet. For the same reason, Prabhakaran’s face was pushed downwards into the soft, wet ground prior to the shot.

The actual shooting may have been videoed.

Presenting the evidence

Such speculative accounts of Prabhakaran's demise are at odds with other suggestions, whose veracity cannot be ruled out, which suggest that Prabhakaran in fact died at the hands of his LTTE bodyguards. These reports are considered below.

First, however, it should be noted that prior to making video footage for publicity, Prabhakaran's cadaver may have been cleaned and made visually presentable. Roachbane has not been able to determine whether he was shaved and fitted in a fresh uniform by special forces, or whether he had done this himself prior to the "encounter". It is also possible that his moustache was dyed to resemble his public image more closely.

The “dog tag” and identity card presented with the body may also have been fakes presented to increase the plausibility of Prabhakaran’s identity.

Some errors were made by senior leaders in Sri Lanka in their eagerness to get the news out. For instance, initial claims from the military described the body as “bullet ridden” when it was in fact untouched. Other accounts, based on a mis-identification the previous day, claimed it was “scorched” or “burnt”. But in large part, the publicity operation was carried out with great success.

Even the army’s implausible story that Prabhakaran was gunned down during an attempted break-out – in a convoy of light vehicles including an ambulance – was believed.

Video supports the account

Video evidence of Prabhakaran’s corpse supports the accounts of "execution" theorists, and refutes the account of the Sri Lankan Army in which Prabhakaran was supposedly shot down while trying to escape.

There is not a single wound, bullet-hole or bloodstain on Prabhakran’s uniform, arms or face.

The exit wound in the forehead could only have been made by an angled shot from below, and probably from behind.

A self-inflicted shot from below the chin could also have made the wound, and two red marks are visible in this region on Prabhakaran’s cadaver. However, these marks do not resemble entry-wounds and the angle required to achieve the exit wound in his forehead would be difficult to achieve without damage to the face.

One or more shots in the back of the head therefore appear to be the most likely cause of death. These could have been administered by a Sri Lankan executioner, or by an LTTE cadre.

What is certain is that the nature of Prabhakaran’s wounds and the condition of the body are totally inconsistent with the official account of the Sri Lankan army.

Why was he killed?

Discussions at the highest level of the Sri Lankan government probably concluded several months ago that it was not in the interests of the state that Prabhakaran or indeed any of the LTTE’s top military commanders should be taken alive.

While many Sri Lankan citizens would have welcomed a public trial, it would be divisive and humiliating for the Tamil population, would allow the secessionist cause a major public platform, and a death sentence would attract considerable international controversy. Moreover, it would have bolstered Prabhakaran’s inevitable status as a martyr.

Furthermore, it was the wish of the executive that victory should be followed quickly by reconstruction and a forward-looking perspective. A prolonged trial would prevent quick progress towards their dream of a new Sri Lanka.

Some supporters of the "execution" theory beleive that special forces may have been placed on standby as early as February 2009 with a clear, but adaptable and continually updated plan, for the execution of Prabhakaran if the opportunity arose.

The LTTE response

How Prabhakaran could have fallen alive into the Sri Lankan Army’s custody is not clear. One possibility is that he was hoodwinked into surrendering with a bogus offer of exile.

The Tamilnet website has already condemned the trickery of the Sri Lankan army in offering a safe passage to LTTE “civil officers” and then “massacring” them. So far, however, it has not admitted that Prabhakaran himself was killed in this or a similar act of deception.

Indeed, Roachbane’s understanding is that there is still some confusion in international LTTE circles about the fate of Prabhakaran. The confusion surrounds the fact that Prabhakaran had one (not two, as is sometimes claimed) highly effective body double. The body double is beleived to have a similar build and facial bone structure to Prabhakaran, but to be younger and taller.

There are some claims within the organisation that the cadaver shown on Sri Lankan television is in fact the body double, who was shot by LTTE cadre. The dog-tag and identity card were placed upon his person by the Tigers in order to fool the Sri Lankan army, while the real Prabhakaran made good his escape.

This account cannot yet be conclusively refuted.

The situation is confused by the fact that the body-double was used in some LTTE photographs and videos of Prabhakaran.

Furthermore, Roachbane understands that DNA tests on the supposed body of Prabhakaran, based on samples obtained from India, were not carried out. The Sri Lankan state does not have access to Indian DNA records.

DNA tests could be conducted to establish if there is a paternity relationship between the “Prabhakaran” corpse and the cadaver believed to be that of his son, Charles Anthony, but these tests are unlikely to be published, and may not have been carried out.

The international wing of the LTTE has been hoping desperately for evidence that their leader is still alive. For this reason the main LTTE website, Tamilnet, has not yet admitted that Prabhakaran is dead.

There are also elements within the organization who, while believing Prabhakaran is dead, consider it of strategic value to propagate the myth that he is still alive – a figure of hope to the Tamil people, and fear to the Sinhalese.

The most rapidly-growing view within the LTTE, however, is that Prabhakaran is indeed dead, and the sooner it is acknowledged the better. These forces are gaining ground, but remain a minority position for now.

Prabhakaran’s family murdered?

Roachbane has no information on reports that Prabhakaran’s wife and two younger children have been found shot in the head in the lagoon close to where the LTTE leader’s body was supposedly found.

If confirmed, this will inevitably lead to difficult speculations about who killed them.

Despite their abysmal human rights record which includes numerous murders, rapes and assuaults including crimes against minors, it is unlikely in the circumstances operating at the time that Sri Lankan army regulars, or indeed special forces, would have executed children with point-blank head shots.

Unpalatable though it is, a stronger likelihood is that they were killed on the orders of Prabhakaran himself when he considered his own death to be inevitable.

This would place Prabhakaran within a long line of dictatorial or cult leaders who ordered the deaths of those around them when their world collapsed.

Examples of this well-established psychiatric pathology – known to occur in arrogant, delusory and/or dictatorial men whose view of themselves and reality is brutally refuted by events – include Adolf Hitler, Jim Jones of the Jonestown massacre, and David Koresh of the Waco conflagration among others. A related pathology is exhibited by the numerous anonymous little bullies who kill their families prior to their own suicide when their lives fall apart.

However, if Prabhakaran did indeed order his family’s death, then the likelihood is increased that, notwithstanding the information Roachbane has received, it was in fact, as some reports suggest, an LTTE bullet that killed him – and a bullet fired on his own orders.

In this scenario, the death-shot would most likely have been administered when capture was literally just seconds away. If the LTTE had had more time, they would certainly have destroyed or burned the body.

The reports of the death of Prabhakaran’s family, or of the nature of their deaths, may yet prove false, however – another triumph for the masterful public relations machine of the Sri Lankan army and state.

Finally, there has been some speculation within the organization that Prabhakaran killed himself with cyanide when capture was inevitable, and that the bullet-shot was administered to his corpse, either by an LTTE cadre to ensure he was dead, or by the Sri Lankan army for public relations purposes as described above.

The whole truth is never likely to be known, or universally believed.

What is certain, however, is that the defeat of the LTTE in Sri Lanka has been spectacularly comprehensive, and that the specifics of how it was done, and of Prabhakaran’s fate, will be debated for years.