Funeral for El Salvador ex-president suspected of graft

Politicians, diplomats and business leaders in El Salvador on Monday bid farewell to Francisco Flores, a former president who died on the weekend aged 56 while awaiting trial on graft charges.

However no government representative turned out for a funeral mass in his honor in a San Salvador basilica where his coffin, draped with the national flag, was put on display ahead of a private family cremation.

Flores, who led the Central American country from 1999 to 2004, was to have been tried of charges of embezzling $15 million donated by Taiwan for victims of a 2001 earthquake.

But he died on Saturday while in a coma brought on by a massive stroke suffered a week earlier said to have caused irreversible brain damage.

One figure attending the mass was a former Guatemalan president, Alfonso Portillo, who held office at the same time as Flores, and who had served more than a year and a half in a US prison for money laundering.

He said he and Flores had often spoken "as good friends," and added: "I didn't doubt his honesty."
Source :AFP