Photos prove army executed Tamil Tiger chief's son, says documentary maker
Director says documentary tells 'chilling story' of 12-year-old Tamil being riddled with bullets
Photos released on Tuesday to publicise a new documentary on Sri Lanka show that government soldiers executed the 12-year-old son of separatist chief Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009, its director claimed.
The photos, part of a documentary for Britain's Channel 4, proved the Sri Lankan army's involvement in war crimes including summary execution and torture during the island's civil war, Callum Macrae said.
The pictures "tell a chilling story", Macrae wrote in an article published in the Indian newspaper The Hindu.
In one, Balachandran, the youngest son of the slain Tamil Tiger leader, is seen eating a snack while sitting in a green sandbag bunker guarded by a soldier. A second image shows his bullet-riddled bare-chested body.
The documentary alleges that Balachandran was executed two hours after the first photo was taken.
The images had been scrutinised by digital image analysts, who concluded they came from the same camera, and supported video footage of the boy's body uncovered last year, Macrae said. The government has maintained that Prabhakaran's family was killed in fighting. The bodies of his wife and daughter have never been found.