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Former Tamil Tiger jailed in Britain

A former Sri Lankan Tamil guerrilla leader was jailed for nine months in Britain on Friday after being found guilty of having false documents, the Home Office said.

Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, also known as Colonel Karuna, was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court in London after admitting the charge at a lower court on Dec. 24.

He was charged under the Identity Cards Act 2006 after entering Britain illegally, a Home Office spokeswoman said.

Karuna was reportedly arrested in London in November.

Human rights group Amnesty International has called for British authorities to investigate whether he can be prosecuted in Britain for international war crimes, including abducting children and using them as child soldiers.

Karuna, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, was the de facto No. 2 of the Tamil 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 Tamil Tigers from a large rebel enclave near the eastern lagoon town of Batticaloa, a key government success last year.

The UN has accused Sri Lankan security forces of colluding with Karuna to recruit child soldiers to fight the Tigers in the island's east.

Colombo had angrily rejected the charge and accused UN diplomats of supporting "terrorists."

In 2005, a British court jailed a former Afghan warlord, Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, for torture and hostage-taking in Afghanistan -- the first case of its kind in Britain since London ratified a 1988 convention allowing it to try crimes of torture committed abroad.
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