Colombo - A former Tamil rebel military wing leader, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, alias Karuna, has been named a member of parliament in Sri Lanka by the ruling party, officials said.

Muralitharan, who led the military wing of the rebels in eastern Sri Lanka and was once a bodyguard of rebel chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, broke away from the rebel movement in 2004 and has been supporting the government's military campaign to fight his former organisation.

Officials said the swearing in ceremony of Muralitharan is scheduled to take place Tuesday morning, but the official gazette notification naming him as a legislator of the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) has already been published. He is filling a vacancy created by the resignation of a parliamentarian.

Muralitharan, 43, has been accused of various human rights violations, including the overrunning of police stations in 1990, massacres of military officers and civilians while being a member of the rebel movement – the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

After he split from the rebel movement in 2004 he was also accused of recruiting child soldiers through his newly formed party known as the TMVP (Tamil People's Liberation Tigers) of which he is still the leader.

No effort has been made to investigate the allegations against him, though rights groups such as Amnesty International have called for investigations into charges of war crimes against him.

Muralitharan was arrested in London in November 2007 for entering the United Kingdom on a forged passport and was sentenced to a six- month jail term. He returned to Sri Lanka in July.

The government has defended his movement on the grounds that they have returned to the political mainstream and ended a campaign for a separate state, however, the TMVP is known to have arms which they claim is needed to defend themselves from the rebels.

In May his party provincial elections in the once war-torn eastern province and one of its members, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, was elected the chief minister. (dpa)