Ex-S.Lanka Tiger awaits UK ID fraud sentence

Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, also known as Karuna, the Tamil Tiger leader who split from the rebels, smiles at his Meenahanam Military Base in the jungles in Baticaloa district in eastern Sri Lanka March 11, 2004.

LONDON (Reuters) - Renegade ex-Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebel Karuna Amman has pleaded guilty to identity document fraud in Britain, court officials said on Thursday, as rights groups push for him to be charged with war crimes.

Karuna was the eastern commander for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) until he split from the mainstream rebels in 2004. Since then analysts say his fighters have been backing the government and attacking their ex-comrades.

British officials say they have asked the Sri Lankan government how Karuna -- real name V. Muralitharan -- was able to acquire an apparently genuine Sri Lankan diplomatic passport in a false name after his new group the TMVP split and ousted him last year.

The Sri Lankan government has denied any knowledge of how Karuna, arrested in London by British police and due to be sentenced on Friday, obtained the documentation.

Officials at Isleworth Crown Court told Reuters he had pleaded guilty at a lower, magistrates court before Christmas to charges under the Identity Cards Act. He could face up to two years in prison, a fine or both.

"He will be sentenced tomorrow," an official said.

Rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accuse Karuna of massacres, hostage-taking and child soldier recruitment, both before and after his split, while his attacks were seen as a factor in the collapse of the island's 2002 ceasefire and renewal of civil war in 2006.

They hope to persuade Britain's Crown Prosecution Service to charge him with torture or other war crimes charges, and hope witnesses will be more likely to testify if they know he is already in prison.

Karuna and his group has always denied abuses, saying the mainstream Tigers might be carrying them out in their name to blacken their image. The government and Karuna deny links, despite numerous accounts of troops and his fighters together.

Analysts say his group was valuable in assisting the military in evicting the LTTE from the island's east.

Both the mainstream Tigers and government have become increasingly internationally isolated, with diplomats aghast after the government unilaterally withdrew from the Norwegian-brokered truce earlier in January.

The war has since further escalated and few see an end in sight as the death toll rises above 70,000 on an island still recovering from the 2004 tsunami.