CAIRO, Dec 3 (AFP) - Fathi Arafat, brother of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was buried at a family cemetery in Cairo on Friday following funeral prayers at an armed forces mosque northeast of the Egyptian capital.
The prayers were attended by around 400 people, most of them regulars at the Friday weekly Muslim prayers at the mosque, an AFP journalist reported.
Fathi Arafat died of cancer in Cairo on Wednesday at the age of 71.
A doctor by profession, he was honorary president of the Palestinian Red Cresent Society, of which he was a co-founder in 1968.
He had been fighting for his life for several weeks, and was admitted to hospital on November 2.
Egyptian Presient Hosni Mubarak sent an aide to convey his condolences and attend the prayers, which was also attended by Health Minister Awad Tag Eddin, the official MENA news agency said.
Manduh Gabr, a former health minister and Secretary General of the Egyptian Red Crescent Society, and Palestinian ambassador Zohdi al-Khodra were also present.
A small party of relatives and close associates accompanied the body, laid in a coffin drapped with a Palestinian flag, to its final resting place.
Arafat's death came less than a month after his older brother died in a French military hospital outside Paris on November 11. Relatives said he was never told of his brother's death due to his condition.
A 1957 graduate of the University of Cairo, he worked for many years in Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan. He helped establish the Palestinian Hospital in Cairo, and a number of medical centers in the Palestinian territories.
He leaves behind an Egyptian dentist wife and two children. Daughter Amani heads the dentistry department at the Palestinian Hospital, and son Tareq is an engineer, like his uncle before he embarked on the struggle for Palestinian statehood.
12/03/2004 14:42 GMT - AFP