Sri Lanka's [Images] Tamil Tiger rebels on Saturday conferred their highest civilian honour on slain Tamil legislator Nadarajah Raviraj calling him a 'great man' who worked for the liberation of the minority community.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran bestowed the title of 'Mamanithar,' or great man, on Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Raviraj, 44, who was shot dead in Colombo on Friday.      

The Lankan government has said it was planning to invite Scotland Yard to assist in the investigations into the killing.

The assassination has been internationally condemned.  

'As a parliamentarian he worked tirelessly for the Tamil nation. He spoke loudly to the world about the Sinhala Buddhist chauvinistic state terror. He shattered the false propaganda of the Sinhala state infusing his arguments with his legal expertise,' the Tigers said in a statement.

The TNA had emerged proxies of the Tamil Tigers. However, TNA legislators are mostly moderate Tamils who themselves have at some time or the other come under pressure from the Tigers till they accepted the rebels as the main representatives of the minority Tamils.