Pro-Sri Lankan government paramilitary leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, widely known as Karuna Amman, has claimed that the UK’s sanctions against him are politically motivated and driven by elements within the Tamil diaspora.
In a recent interview with BBC Tamil, the former paramilitary leader and deputy minister rejected allegations of human rights abuses and accused the British government of acting under pressure from the British Tamil diaspora.
Karuna was sanctioned by the United Kingdom in March 2025 for his role in serious human rights violations during Sri Lanka’s armed conflict. He was sanctioned alongside three other Sri Lankan military commanders.
Speaking to BBC Tamil, Karuna denied the accusations and claimed that two of the allegations cited by the UK were related to his time with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), before he defected in 2004.
He alleged that the sanctions were pushed by LTTE-sympathetic Tamil diaspora groups who, he claimed, misunderstood the nature of the accusations.
“If Prabhakaran were here, he would have definitely opposed these sanctions against me,” Karuna said, referring to the former LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Karuna also questioned why the UK did not act earlier when he entered the country in 2008. He said that if he had committed any human rights violations, the British authorities could have taken action then. Instead, he claimed, “they sent me back home safely with British police protection.”
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He portrayed the sanctions as part of a wider political effort to undermine the newly announced alliance between him and Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (Pillayan), another former paramilitary leader. The duo had recently announced a political pact to represent Eastern Tamils.
In the interview, Karuna also praised Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has long been accused of complicity in war crimes, for defending him in the wake of the UK sanctions. “The Rajapaksas defended me,” Karuna said. “But the current government’s silence is disappointing.”
He further claimed that the Sri Lankan government owes him for the role he played in weakening the Tamil armed struggle. “I was the one who convinced fighters and the Tamil public to lay down their arms and enter the democratic process,” Karuna said. “The government cannot forget that.”
“This government should understand this,” he said, referring to the current National People Power’s (NPP) led government. He went on to state that it was the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) that “divided the united North-East” when the successfully lobbied the Sri Lankan Supreme Court to de-merge the North-East into two provinces.
They will “only take decisions that are hostile to the Tamil people,” claimed Karuna.
Karuna led a brutal paramilitary campaign following his defection from the LTTE in 2004. His group, the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), aligned with the Sri Lankan military and was implicated in serious abuses including enforced disappearances, abductions, and child recruitment. Despite this, Karuna was appointed as a minister in the Sri Lankan government under Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The UK’s sanctions were widely welcomed by Tamil human rights activists and survivors, who described them as a long-overdue step toward justice and accountability.
