Seized ship was kept ready for Prabhakaran8217;s escape

8220;It is also learnt that the vessel had been kept ready to make good the escape of the LTTE leadership at the final stages of the Humanitrian Operations,8221; the Sri Lankan Navy said in a statement today.

The 89-metre-long vessel was brought into Colombo port yesterday with intelligence officials saying it had been utilised for arms smuggling and human trafficking during the period of war.

The statement said the escape of top LTTE leadership through sea was thwarted by an alert three rings of security cordon. It was widely speculated during the last phase of the war in May this year that 54-year-old Prabhakaran would escape the island and fight for another day,but he was killed by Lankan Army on May 18,bringing curtains on the decades-old ethnic conflict.

Navy Commander Vice Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe told reporters that the acquiring of this vessel by Sri Lanka was a significant achievement. The government says it has come to light that the detained LTTE chief owns five ships and 600 unidentified bank accounts which are sought to be frozen.

KP,who was arrested overseas and brought to Colombo in August this year,is considered to have run clandestine finances of the now vanquished LTTE.