Colombo: The leader of Sri Lanka s rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prabhakaran has been summoned by the Colombo High Court, officials said Wednesday. The Attorney General s Department Tuesday filed indictment on Prabhakaran and five other rebels on the August 2005 murder of the then Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

The reclusive Tamil Tiger leader will need to appear in the court March 24. A fellow Tamil, Kadirgamar was gunned down near the swimming pool of his Colombo home by a LTTE gunman. Kadirgamar had led an international campaign against the rebels which resulted in several countries banning the rebel outfit.

The Colombo High Court in October 2002 sentenced Prabhakaran to 200 years imprisonment for bombing the Central Bank building and killing about 100 people in January 1996 in trial held in absentia. The Sri Lankan authorities have not been able to arrest the LTTE leader as he lives in the rebel hideout in the island s Northern Province.

Prabhakaran s LTTE has been fighting the government troops since the mid-1980s to set up a separate homeland for the Tamil minority in the north and east, resulting in the killing of more than 70,000 people.

Source : IANS