soldiers who claimed that they had been given orders from "the top" to summarily execute all ethnic Tamils, civilians as well as fighters. A senior commander claimed "the order would have been to kill everybody and finish them off..It is clear that such orders were...from the top". Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, President Rajapaksa's brother, was said to have given direct orders to army commanders at the battle front. It was also claimed in the story that Velupillai Prabhakaran's 13-year-old son Balachandran was interrogated by the Sri Lankan military before being shot. A front line soldier said "our commander ordered us to kill everyone. We killed everyone". The soldier claimed that the Tamils were tortured before being executed. Numerous photos taken by Sri Lankan soldiers showing dead bodies and Tamil prisoners were also shown in the broadcast. One of the soldiers who served in the 58 Division of the Sri Lankan Army tearfully recounted the heinous crimes committed by fellow soldiers in 2009: An army insider also witnessed indiscriminate massacres on May 18, 2009, and stated the following: Subramaniuim Sivakami alias Thamilini, the women’s political wing leader of the LTTE, recounts her experiences in her book, “ In the Shadow of a Sword”. She decided to surrender to the Sri lankan army after she learnt about the instructions given by the LTTE leadership to shoot at the legs of Tamils crossing over to government-controlled areas. Thamilini refused to follow the orders given by LTTE leadership. She states: She decided to throw away her Tiger uniform and the cyanide capsule, changed into civilian clothes and joined a group of civilians crossing over to the government-controlled areas. She further talks about the increased forced recruitment practices of the LTTE during the final stages of the war. She states the following: "White flag" case On 13 December 2009 The Sunday Leader newspaper published an interview with General Sarath Fonseka, commander of the Sri Lankan armed forces during the final months of the war, in which he claimed that Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had ordered an army commander at the battlefront to shoot dead all Tamil Tiger leaders who tried to surrender. Fonseka claimed that during the final days of the civil war senior Tamil Tiger leaders were trying to arrange their surrender by communicating with Basil Rajapaksa, senior adviser to President Rajapaksa, via Norway and other foreign governments. Basil Rajapaksa then informed