Slain killer hailed a martyr in Pakistan

Thousands of people gathered in a football stadium in Quetta yesterday for the funeral of a Pakistani man executed last week for the 1993 murders of two CIA employees. Heavily armed police were on hand to ensure peace, but fears of an anti-American backlash did not materialise.

As Aimal Kasi's body, draped in green cloth, made its way into the stadium, an Islamic cleric recited verses from the Koran.

Many pushed forward to catch a glimpse of Kasi's face. "Aimal Kasi was martyred by the imperialist America," said the cleric, Hussain Ahmed Sherodi. "Aimal Kasi's martyrdom has united Muslims against the United States." Mourners held placards saying "Down with the USA," and "Shame, Shame, Bush!"

Kasi's family had appealed for peace, and the chief of the Kasi tribe thanked mourners for respecting their wishes.

After the prayers, thousands accompanied Kasi's body on the two-mile walk to the family's ancestral graveyard. Mean-while, politicians in the capital, Islamabad, interrupted a parliamentary session to say a prayer for Kasi, regarded as a hero by many.

"May his soul be blessed and his family have patience," said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a politician from the hardline Islamic bloc, a coalition of six groups called the MMA. "May those who handed him over [to the Americans] be destroyed."

Kasi was executed by lethal injection in Virginia on 14 November for the 1993 murders of two CIA employees. He shot and killed Frank Darling, 28, a communications worker, and Lansing Bennett, 66, an analyst, outside the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

* Pakistani politicians picked Chaudhry Amir Hussain as parliamentary speaker yesterday in their first official act since being sworn in over the weekend. However, efforts to form a ruling coalition government failed. (AP)