Wife Says Slain Tunisia MP to be Buried near Belaid

Assassinated opposition MP Mohammed Brahmi will be buried on Saturday in a Tunis cemetery next to leftist leader Chokri Belaid who was killed six months ago, Brahmi's wife said.

Tunisia's main labor union has called for a national funeral, and the police are deploying in force.

"Mohamed will be buried in the martyrs' section of El Jallez cemetery, next to Chokri Belaid," Mbarka Brahmi told Agence France Presse late Friday.

Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou said that Brahmi was shot dead on Thursday outside his home by the "same gun" used to kill Belaid in February, and has pointed an accusing finger at al-Qaida.

Mbarka Brahimi said her husband's remains will be transported from Charles Nicolle hospital to his home in the Tunis suburb of Ariana on Saturday morning and leave for the cemetery at 0900 GMT.

The funeral procession will travel 10 kilometers (six miles) but will stop on the way to the cemetery at Habib Bourguiba Avenue -- epicenter of the 2011 uprising -- in central Tunis where crowds of mourners are expected.

The General Union of Tunisian Labour (UGTT) said it would be organizing a national funeral for Brahmi. On Friday it called a general strike in protest at "terrorism, violence and murders".

The interior ministry said it will deploy reinforcements to ensure security for the funeral, and has announced that several roads around the cemetery will be closed to traffic between 0600 GMT and 1500 GMT.

Tens of thousands of people attended Belaid's funeral on February 8, a day after the leftist politician and vocal critic of the Islamist-led government was gunned down in a brazen attack outside his home.

At the time police used tear gas against protesters on the margins of the funeral after several cars parked near the cemetery were torched.

Brahmi, 58, was an MP with the leftist and national Popular Movement but quit the party -- which he had founded -- on July 7, saying it had been infiltrated by Islamists.