Tamil Tigers and their supremo V Prabhakaran are facing imminent defeat at Kilinochchi as the Sri Lankan army is on the verge of overrunning Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's defacto capital, former top LTTE [Images] commander Karuna Amman has said.

In an interview to state owned Independent Television Network, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan [Images] alias Karuna Amman, once the second in command in the LTTE, said the rebel leader was about to be "punished for his insensate crimes".

"Former Comrade in arms of Prabhakaran, Karuna said that the LTTE leader is at his last gasp in Kilinochchi and he is about to be punished for all his cruel and insensate crimes," the Defence Ministry quoted Karuna as saying.

Karuna also told the channel that Prabhakaran had claimed that the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi [Images] was carried out without his knowledge.

He said he had raised the question of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and the attack on the 'Temple of the Tooth' in Kandy with Prabhakaran and told him that these acts created opposition all over the world against the Tamil movement.

"The LTTE leader's simple explanation was that those (acts) had been done without his knowledge," he told the channel. He claimed that Prabhakaran was simply lying in this statement as no decisions in the LTTE are taken without his knowledge.

Karuna, who formed the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pullikal group after he quit the Tigers, said he left the LTTE over disagreements on acts of terrorism practiced by the group, the Defence Ministry quoted him as saying in the interview.