BEIRUT, Feb 15 (AFP) - Former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, assassinated by an apparent suicide car bomber, is to be buried Wednesday amid acrimony and recriminations in a ceremony from which government officials have been told to stay away, close friends said.
"The family has categorically and definitively refused" that the funeral be organised by the state, amid charges that the Syrian-backed Lebanese authorities were involved in the killing, one friend said.
"No one can prevent a cabinet minister of any other official close to the regime from attending the funeral. The mosque is open to everyone," he said. "But of course no one can predict what the people's reaction would be."
Opposition Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, himself having been warned of possible attempts on his life, told Al-Arabiya television Tuesday night that world leaders might be at the funeral but that Lebanese President Emile Lahoud would not.
"I advise him not to be there. I advise all this regime not to come, because eggs, if not stones, will be hurled at them."
The family hopes for a massive public turnout, said former finance minister and close Hariri colleague Fuad Siniora.
"Public security is the responsibility of the authorities," he said, adding that this included the security of foreign guests expected in Beirut.
After Hariri and 14 other people, including seven of his bodyguards, were killed Monday in what a senior minister said was apparently a suicide bombing, the government had said a "national funeral" would be held.
It also declared three days of national mourning for the five-times former premier, in which all institutions, public and private, are to remain closed.
A relative said the funeral would be held at noon (1000 GMT) at the Mohammed al-Amin Mosque in Beirut's city center, a place of worship that billionaire Hariri had helped restore following Lebanon's civil war.
Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition called for the pro-Syrian government to resign and for Syrian troops to quit the country, after a meeting held at Hariri's home.
The opposition blamed the governments in Beirut and Damascus for Hariri's death and demanded a three-day general strike.
Lahoud and Prime Minister Omar Karameh had Tuesday yet to pay their respects at the Hariri home, and Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh said he had advised them against such a visit.
But Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam came to Beirut and went to Hariri's house to pay his condolences.
He told journalists outside that the killing was a "huge earthquake, whose consequences it will be difficult to contain.
"It is the murder of a dream, of the hope and the peace of Lebanon," he said of Hariri, whom he called a "martyr."
On the eve of the funeral, angry mourners in Hariri's hometown of Sidon, south of Beirut, beat up a group of Syrian workers and vowed to avenge his death.
In the northern town of Tripoli, 5,000 protesters held a peaceful but angry march after dusk prayers, calling on the government and parliament to step down.
Franjieh told a press conference in Beirut he did not expect "friction" between mourners and security forces, pledging that the latter would "respect freedom of expression".
But he warned against any public disturbances.
Amid the harsh language, mourners set out thousands of candles and votive lights in both Muslim and Christian neighborhoods of the capital.
That was sparked by an anonymous telephone text message campaign calling for "lighting candles to pay hommage to Rafiq Hariri, dead as a martyr for the independence of Lebanon."
Convoys of cars drove through the streets of Beirut adorned with portraits of Hariri, their occupants shouting "there is but one God, and Hariri is beloved of God."
While Lebanese officials have been told to stay away from the funeral, several leaders are expected to attend.
William Burns, US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, will attend, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
The European Union is sending its Middle East envoy, Marc Otte, officials said in Brussels.
Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif is expected, along with Foreign Trade and Industry Minister Mohammed Rashid, as is Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa, who arrived in Beirut Tuesday night.
Saudi Arabia said it will be represented by its foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. Hariri had close ties to the Saudi royal family who granted him in 1978 the rare privilege of the Saudi nationality.
Kuwait said it will send Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, eldest son of Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah and adviser to Crown Prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah.
Iraq's interim government is to be represented by Transport Minister Luay al-Aris, said Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office in Baghdad.

02/15/2005 20:05 GMT - AFP