BEIRUT, Feb 16 (AFP) - Lebanese in mourning prepared Wednesday to pay a last farewell to their slain former prime minister Rafiq Hariri at an emotional and politically-charged funeral in the heart of Beirut.
The Lebanese government has been told to keep away, amid opposition charges that the authorities and their backers in Damascus were involved in the assassination, close friends of the Hariri family said.
"The family has categorically and definitively refused" that the funeral be organised by the state, 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."
Several foreign officials are to attend, including US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and Arab League chief Amr Mussa. A friend of Hariri's said French President Jacques Chirac would "probably" travel to Beirut on Wednesday.
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.
But the family asked instead for a massive public turnout, said former finance minister and close Hariri colleague Fuad Siniora.
The funeral is to be held at the new Mohammed al-Amin Mosque in downtown Beirut, which the billionaire tycoon and five-time premier Hariri was instrumental in reconstructing after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.
Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh has said 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.
Starting at 10 am (0800 GMT) Hariri's sons and friends are to carry his body on foot from his home in west Beirut to the mosque, a few kilometres away, on Martyrs' Square where he is to be buried.
Hariri was to have soon inaugurated the mosque built with his funds. On Tuesday, some 200 workers busily prepared for the funeral, as a crane stood guard over the mosque's four minarets.
They painted the walls, cemented the floor and set up chairs under an enormous tent.
On Tuesday night, dozens of students staged a vigil on the Beirut seafront near where Hariri's motorcade was demolished, leaving behind a trail of destruction which revived dark memories of the civil war days.
Many of the mourners cried as they placed a candle on a makeshift altar outside the Saint George Hotel where the bombing took place, near the prestigious Phoenicia Hotel which was damaged by the blast.
Mourners set out thousands of candles and votive lights in both Muslim and Christian neighborhoods of the capital.
That was sparked by a telephone text message campaign calling for "lighting candles to pay homage to Rafiq Hariri, dead as a martyr for the independence of Lebanon."
Convoys of cars drove through the streets of Beirut late Tuesday adorned with portraits of Hariri, their occupants shouting "there is but one God, and Hariri is beloved of God."
02/16/2005 01:11 GMT - AFP