Lebanese pay tribute to first slain protester

Hundreds of Lebanese on Thursday took part in a funeral for Alaa Abu Fakher, the first protester killed in the country's anti-government rallies that erupted in mid-October. 

Abu Fakher was shot dead by an army soldier on Tuesday in the town of Khaldeh, south of the capital Beirut, according to witnesses. He was the first protester to be killed by a soldier since the Lebanese anti-government protests started on 17 October. Abu Fakher, 38, has since come to be regarded as an icon of the protest movement targeting Lebanon's political class.

On Thursday, angry mourners gathered along with Abu Fakher's family in Choueifat, a town on the southern outskirts of Beirut, where the funeral was held.

"We are all Alaa," the mourners chanted. The crowd clapped as Abu Fakher's coffin, draped in the Lebanese flag and covered with floral wreaths, passed past the mourners.

Abu Fakher was a follower of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Abu Fakher was killed in front of his family when the army opened fire to disperse demonstrators, who had stopped the soldiers from passing through a blocked road in Khaldeh, witnesses said.

Videos, which went viral on social media, showed him lying on the ground in a pool of blood, as his son screamed: "Please, do not die."

Caretaker Defence Minister Elias Bou Saab asked the military court to launch an urgent investigation into what he called a "painful event."

Lebanon's nationwide protests erupted amid a deepening economic crisis and prompted Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign almost two weeks later.

Street protesters have since continued to demand the ruling elite step down and a government of independent technocrats form.    (dpa)