The body of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has been "reduced to ashes’’ as the government did not wish any cult to build up around him or others to seek to emulate his terrorism, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the army’s spokesman said on Thursday.

He said that Prabhakaran had died during a confrontation with troops either on Sunday night or Monday morning on a small mangrove island in the Nandikadal lagoon in the Mullaitivu District when the LTTE put up its last fight.

Brigadier Nanayakkara said the terrorists leader, who made all his cadres wear cyanide capsules round their necks to be bitten if captured, did not carry a suicide capsule.

"The LTTE leader was clad in uniform, carried a weapon, a satellite phone, an LTTE identity card and a dog tag marked 01,’’ Nanayakkara said.

There have been conflicting versions about Prabhakaran’s final moments. The army initially said he had been shot while trying to flee in a seized army ambulance together with some other LTTE leaders.

‘He was not carrying any money,’’ the spokesman said. "But his son, Charles Anthony, who was also killed had over Rs. 12 million (over USD 100,000) in a bag.’’

Nanayakkara said that Prabhakaran had gunshot injury on his head and his guards appeared to have been with him when he died.

The army had not allowed any souvenirs of the man who built up and led one of the world’s most feared terrorist groups, controlling nearly one third of Sri Lanka’s territory, to remain. All the personal items of the LTTE leader had been destroyed, the army spokesman said.

"We don’t want him presented as a martyr,’’ the spokesman said.

Nanayakkara said that the army had killed 22,000 LTTE cadres while the military’s losses were 5,224 soldiers killed since the beginning of hostilities in the middle of 1986.

Asked about the losses the army had suffered during during the final stages of the war, Nanayakkara did not give any numbers.

He said that there were small groups of LTTE cadres as well as many ‘sleepers’ all over the country including Colombo. However, he had no estimated numbers to offer.

"There are suicide groups, pistol gangs and people with access to claymore mines,’’ he said.

Over 4,000 ‘self-confessed’ LTTE activists were among 250,000 civilians now in the welfare centres for the internally displaced. They would be rehabilitated, Brigadier Nanayakkara said.