President Vladimir Putin on Thursday bade farewell to Andrei Karlov at a packed memorial ceremony in Moscow for the diplomat who was assassinated in Turkey by an off-duty policeman.
Dozens of colleagues and relatives attended the ceremony for Karlov, the ambassador to Turkey whose death was labeled by Moscow as an act of terror.
Putin laid red roses at the foot of Karlov’s coffin and spoke with his relatives but left the ceremony without making a statement.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised the deceased envoy, who was 62, and paid his respects to his mother Maria, widow Marina and son Gennady, also a diplomat, as the ambassador’s body lay in state in a flower-decked coffin.
“We are saying goodbye to our friend Andrei Karlov who became a victim of a malicious, vile terrorist attack while in the line of duty,” Lavrov said at the ceremony held in the foreign ministry headquarters.
“We will never forget Andrei.”
A religious service was later expected to be held at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour led by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill before the ambassador is laid to rest at a cemetery.
In terrifying scenes captured on photo and video, 22-year-old policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas shot the ambassador nine times in the back on Monday while he was delivering a speech at an exhibition of photographs of Russia in Ankara.
The ambassador fell to the ground and later died in hospital.
Source: AFP
