The military in Sri Lanka said on Friday that a special police team operated in the Northern Province had discovered a hiding place of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of Tamil Tiger rebels who was killed in the final battles in May last year.

Military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said they also recovered classified files, compact discs and a large quantity of sophisticated weapons in the hiding place.

Nanayakkara said among the items recovered were documents pertaining to details of his family and close relatives, 56 compact discs containing personal information about himself, his children and close relations and an array of state-of-the-art gun with ammunition.

They also recovered 17 suicide kits, 7,000 Jhonny mines (anti personal mines), 300 kg of C4 explosives, eight claymore mines and massive amount of ammunition, the spokesman said.

Nanayakkara said all these documents and weapons were buried underground in a protective method to safeguard against any possible damage due to natural cause.

He said the team ascertained information about the hideout on questioning six of Prabhakaran's closest aides who are now in government custody.

The Sri Lankan government announced on May 18, 2009 that Prabhakaran had been killed while trying to escape advancing Sri Lanka Army troops in the north of the country.