Opposition activist buried in Sudan

Police in the Sudanese capital Khartoum have used tear gas to disperse demonstrators at the funeral of an opposition activist killed by security guards.

Ali Ahmed El-Bashir, an active member of the opposition Islamist Popular National Congress party (PNC), died of gun wounds on Thursday.

El-Bashir's killing was an act of liquidation

PNC official

A PNC official said over 4,000 people attended the funeral, chanting anti-government slogans on their way to the cemetery.

Police spokesman Abdel Baqqi Mustafa confirmed that the protest took place, but said fewer people participated. He did not give a number.

Mr Mustafa ruled out any political motives behind the death, saying El-Bashir was not a politician and "some people wanted to politicise the incident".

Investigation

Justice Minister General Ali Osman Yassin has announced that a team of three senior prosecutors, headed by Khartoum's prosecutor general, will investigate El-Bashir's death.

The state-run Sudan News Agency on Friday quoted Justice Ministry officials as saying the investigation had already begun.

Yassin has appointed an investigation team

A PNC official said El-Bashir's killing was not an accident but was "an act of liquidation".

He said El-Bashir was an active PNC member who fought in southern Sudan as a mujahideen and was a consul at the Sudanese Embassy in Chad before joining the PNC when the Islamist movement split into a ruling party and an opposition one.

He was shot in the head in front of his wife and children outside his house when he resisted the security men who wanted to arrest him, the PNC official said.

Mr Mustafa said the murder was an "ordinary quarrel" in which El-Bashir attempted to use force for resisting his arrest.