Sat, May 30, 2009
SEOUL, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's hearse arrived at Suwon on Friday for cremation, delayed more than three hours, as the streets were crowded with hundreds of thousands of mourners.
Some hundred people who had been waiting for Roh's hearse at the cremation site burst into tears as soon as the coffin was moved out of the vehicle.
Roh's funeral, held at the Gyeongbok Palace in the morning, was followed by an on-foot procession, which stopped at the central Seoul Plaza for a 30-minute-long traditional memorial rite.
The memorial march was prolonged as more crowd than expected has appeared on the streets to bit a farewell to the late president.
After cremation, which Roh explicitly had asked for on his suicide note, remainder of Roh's body will be buried near his home in Bongha Village.
Roh is to be marked as the first president to be cremated in the history of South Korea.
Ex-president Roh Moo-hyun, served as president of South Korea from 2003 to 2007, jumped off a cliff near his home to his death amid the prosecution investigation into his bribery scandal worth some 6 million U.S. dollars.
