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Karuna in immigration detention centre

LONDON: The rebel LTTE leader, Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, better known as “Colonel Karuna Amman,” who was arrested here on Friday for allegedly travelling on a false passport, is being held in an immigration detention centre.

According to the Home Office, he was arrested following a joint operation between the newly-created Border and Immigration Agency and the Metropolitan police.

A spokesperson said he was being held in “immigration detention” but declined to give details saying: “It would not be appropriate to comment further.”

“Colonel” Karuna, who broke away from the LTTE in 2004 to form his own group, has been accused by the main LTTE leadership of “collaborating” with the Sri Lankan Government but he has denied this.

The British Government has voiced concern over reports that his group has been involved in murders, abductions and in recruiting child soldiers.

But in a rare BBC interview earlier this year he denied this saying: “Definitely we have no need to recruit them because we have no need of building up a military body. At the moment the Sri Lankan government, all three armed forces, are fighting against the Tamil Tigers. We have no need to do so.”

He said that, in fact, one of the reasons why he left the LTTE was because children from the East, his stronghold, were being “sacrificed” by the LTTE leadership.

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Karuna in immigration detention centre

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