Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger leader in British detention centre

COLOMBO (AFP) - A former leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebel splinter group, jailed in Britain since January, has been released and transferred to an immigration detention centre, officials said Friday.

Vinayagmoorthy Muralitharan, also known as Colonel Karuna, was released Thursday following his imprisonment for possessing false documents, the British High Commission (embassy) said here in a statement.

"We have made clear our concerns at the circumstances by which Karuna travelled to the UK.... He (Muralitharan) now remains under immigration detention powers," the statement said.

Colonel Karuna had been sentenced to nine months jail for entering Britain illegally. He was reportedly arrested in London in November.

Karuna had travelled to Britain on an apparently genuine Sri Lankan diplomatic passport issued under a false name. It is not clear if he will be deported.

But human rights group Amnesty International has called for British authorities to investigate whether he can be prosecuted in London for international war crimes, including abducting and using child soldiers.

But that appeared unlikely.

"The Crown Prosecution Service has advised the Metropolitan Police Service that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any criminal offences in the UK," the embassy here said.

Karuna, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, was the de facto number two of the Tigers -- renowned for their use of suicide bombers and child fighters -- before he defected in 2004.

After that, he reportedly worked with Sri Lanka's armed forces to drive out the Tigers from a large rebel enclave near the eastern lagoon town of Batticaloa, one of the biggest government successes of 2007.

The United Nations has accused Sri Lankan security forces of colluding with Karuna to recruit child soldiers to fight the Tigers in the island's east -- a charge denied by Colombo.

Sri Lanka has instead accused UN diplomats of supporting "terrorists."

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