LTTE international spokesman S Pathmanathan is reported to have told the rebel supremo's former ally Karuna Amman that the Tamil Tigers' slain chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran's wife and daughter as well as his top commander Pottu Amman have died in the Sri Lankan conflict, reports say.
The slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supremo's wife Mathivathani and daughter Duwarka were earlier believed to have fled to Europe as the conflict intensified in Sri Lanka's north.
Karuna, the LTTE commander of the Eastern region before he fell out with Prabhakaran in 2004, said that LTTE's International Relations head Pathmanathan has claimed that the wife and daughter of Prabhakaran were dead.
Pathmanathan also confirmed that Pottu Amman, one of the LTTE's top commanders, also died in the combat, he said. Asked about Prabhakaran's second son Balachandran, Karuna, now a federal minister, said nothing is known about him.
"But I cannot confirm this personally... If they were in the no-fire zone, they could not have escaped," Karuna said.
Sri Lankan army has not yet found their bodies or revealed any information about them. The whereabouts of Prabhakaran's 13-year-old son Balachandran are also not known.
Asked what he felt on the death of Prabhakaran, Karuna said he thought about the nearly 100,000 persons who had died and huge amounts of property that was destroyed because of Prabhakaran and the military conflict run by him for years.
"I only thought this man was not accepting a political solution," Karuna told visiting newsmen in Vavunia, in northern Sri Lanka.
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