Tamil Tiger execution video 'is a fake'

The Sri Lankan army says footage broadcast by Channel 4 allegedly showing its soldiers executing Tamil Tiger prisoners was faked.

Last night Channel 4 news showed mobile phone footage supposedly filmed in January as Sri Lankan troops closed in on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam forces.

In the footage, handed over by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, a man wearing a Sri Lankan army uniform shoots a naked prisoner who is bound and gagged. Several corpses are also visible in the background.

Since its broadcast, Channel 4 News said it had been contacted by army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, who insisted the footage had been designed to "discredit the armed forces".

"This was said to have been filmed at a time when the Tigers too were operating dressed in Sri Lankan military uniforms," he added of the clip, allegedly filmed after the fall of Kilinochchi, the former LTTE stronghold.

Allegations of war crimes were levelled against both government troops and LTTE gunmen as a 26-year civil war reached its conclusion in bloody fashion in May.

More than 300,000 ethnic Tamil refugees remain in government camps in the north of the country.

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