Daya Master claims Prabhakaran has a submarine at the ready
Navy confident no escape via sea possible

Brigadier Silva

The army believes that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is still trapped in the civilian safe zone in spite of rumours that he may have fled the country recently.

Brigadier Shavindra Silva, General Officer commanding the army’s 58 Division on a hunt for the elusive Tiger leader told The Island yesterday that he was confident that his target was very much present in the fast shrinking no fire zone. "Towards the end of March, we surrounded a group of about 600 LTTE cadres looking for him," Brigadier Silva said, "but we have information that he managed to slip away sacrificing his cadres."

Brigadier Silva said there was strong evidence that most of the LTTE cadres were wary of fighting and looking for an opportunity to surrender but they were being held at the battlefront at gunpoint by the LTTE leadership. "They will decamp at the first opportunity," he said adding that Prabhakaran could now rely on only a handful of confidants like Soosai and Pottu Amman.

Asked whether he was aware of the LTTE having a submarine at the ready for its leader, his son and the other LTTE leaders to escape, Brigadier Silva said he could not either confirm or deny that. He said he had only heard from LTTE propagandist Daya Master, now in custody, that the Tiger leader had a submarine.

Meanwhile, the Navy denied that the LTTE had any submarines. "They only had semi-submersible vehicles," a senior Naval officer based in the East said, "such contraptions could easily be detected." He said the Navy radars had never spotted any submarines. Navy had equipment to detect underwater movements and there was no way the LTTE leader and other key terrorists could escape, he said. The Navy had cordoned off the Eastern seas effectively with around the clock patrolling of the area, he added.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contacted for comment last evening, told The Island that he believed Prabhakaran was trapped in the no-fire zone which is about a 5 km stretch.