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Thousands attend funeral of slain lawyer

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Yangon: Thousands of mourners gathered on Monday to bury a top lawyer and adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi who was gunned down outside Yangon airport in what the ruling party said was a political assassination.


Ko Ni, a legal adviser to the National League for Democracy, was shot in the head on Sunday afternoon as he waited outside the airport while holding his grandson.


His killing sent shockwaves through both Myanmar’s already hard-pressed Muslim community and the ruling party in a country where political killings are rare.


Police have not said what prompted the murder, but Ko Ni, 63, was a prominent figure who spoke out against the increasingly vocal sentiments of Buddhist hardliners and criticised the powerful military’s grip on power.


Distraught relatives were joined by senior NLD figures, imams, Buddhist monks and members of the public who crammed into a cemetery on the outskirts of Yangon on Monday afternoon. “This is a very cruel and ugly tragedy,” Moe Zaw, a 37-year-old Muslim mourner said.


Both the NLD and Ko Ni’s family suspect he was targeted because of his politics. “We strongly denounce the assassination of Ko Ni like this as it is a terrorist act against the NLD’s policies,” the NLD said in a statement, describing him as an “irreplacable” aide to Suu Kyi. She has yet to make a statement on the killing.


A taxi driver who tried to stop the gunman was also killed. The attacker, named by police as 53-year-old Kyi Lin, was arrested at the scene.


A harrowing photo circulating on social media showed what appeared to be the moment the gunman, standing behind Ko Ni as he held his grandson, took aim.


His daughter Yin Nwe Khaing said she brought her young son to greet his grandfather at the airport, adding her father had made enemies because he had been a prominent Muslim voice.


“As we are from a different religion there were many people who didn’t like and hated it. I think that also could be a reason (for his murder),” she told DVB TV.


Ko Ni had just returned from a government delegation visit to Indonesia where regional leaders were discussing sectarian tensions in Rakhine state. — AFP


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