COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's navy has captured a ship it says was once used to smuggle arms by the now-defeated Tamil Tiger insurgents, a military spokesman said on Monday.

Navy spokesman Capt. Athula Senarath said the 300-foot- long "Princess Chrisanta" was seized by the navy outside Sri Lankan waters and was brought to the island's main port in the capital, Colombo, on Monday.

He would not say where and when the ship was captured.

Senarath said the navy dispatched a team to seize the ship — registered to a foreign country that he would not name — following intelligence reports.

The navy has destroyed eight rebel ships that were transporting weapons during the last three years, the spokesman said.

Government forces routed the Tamil insurgency on the battlefield in May, killing top rebels including their revered leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, to end more than 25 years of civil war.

Three months later, Sri Lankan authorities arrested the rebels' new leader, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, who was the former chief arms smuggler for the Tamil Tigers.

Before his capture, Pathmanathan ran the group's vast international weapons smuggling ring that Jane's Intelligence Review estimated earned the rebels up to $300 million per year.

The circumstances of Pathmanathan's arrest in August remain unclear. The government has said only that Sri Lankan authorities seized him in a Southeast Asian country, which it has refused to name. A rebel statement said he was seized in Malaysia.

Sri Lanka's victory over the Tamil Tigers ended their campaign to create an independent state for ethnic minority Tamils that began in 1983. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people died in the civil war.