LTTE for the first time admitted on Sunday that its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is dead. The statement comes nearly a week after Sri Lanka said that the rebel leader was killed.

LTTE's head of International relations Selvarasa Pathmanathan told BBC that their "incomparable leader had attained martyrdom."

The LTTE leader said Prabhakaran had died on May 17 but did not give details of the circumstances, it reported.

Pathmanathan said the Tigers would now use "non-violent" methods to fight for the rights of Tamils.

This week, the Sri Lankan government had declared that it had finally killed Prabhakaran and proclaimed victory against his Tamil Tiger rebels, crushing a 25-year rebellion that the UN estimates had cost between 80,000 to 100,000 lives.

However, many Tamils didn't believe it.

For some radicals, especially those living abroad, it hardly matters whether the legendary guerrilla is alive or dead, as long as the story line carries on of an independent Tamil state in part of the Sinhalese-dominated island nation.

Prabhakaran, who was 54, was a larger-than-life character who championed the dreams of the Sri Lanka's minority Tamils. He was seldom seen in public, yet his word was unquestioned. He governed by fiat over a de facto state in one-third of this Indian Ocean island nation.

Even many Tamils who abhorred the Tigers' suicide bombings and assassinations embraced him as their hope for dignity and equal rights in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan army has said that Prabhakaran was among the last to die in the civil war's final battle on Tuesday. His body was found in a thicket of mangroves along a shallow lagoon on the desolate northeastern coast.

Photographs of the familiar mustachioed face, a handkerchief covering the fatal head wound, were splashed on the front pages of Sri Lanka's national papers on Wednesday. His dog tags and ID card were also put on display for the cameras.

(With AP inputs)