Former Party chief Le Kha Phieu lies in state for people to pay respects

By Staff reporters   August 13, 2020 | 07:39 pm PT
The body of Le Kha Phieu, former General Secretary of the Communist Party, will lie in state until noon on Saturday.

At 8 a.m. on Friday he was brought to the Ministry of National Defense’s funeral home on Hanoi's Le Thanh Tong Street for people to pay their final respects.

Honor guards and Vietnamese leaders stand around te body of former Party chief Le Kha Phieu at the National Funeral Home in Hanoi, August 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Honor guards and Vietnamese leaders stand around the body of former Party chief Le Kha Phieu at the National Funeral Home in Hanoi, August 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

The memorial service will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Phieu's final resting place will be at the Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi.

Nguyen Phu Trong, Party General Secretary and President, is heading the funeral committee.

Delegates from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the National Assembly, the President, the Government and the Central Committee of Vietnam Fatherland Front have come to the ceremony to pay respect.

Vietnamese leaders pay their last respects to former Party chief Le Kha Phieu, whose body is lying in state in Hanoi, August 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Vietnamese leaders pay their last respects to former Party chief Le Kha Phieu, whose body is lying in state in Hanoi, August 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Similar ceremonies are also being held at the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City and the 25B Quang Trung Street Hall in Thanh Hoa Province, Phieu's hometown.

In Hanoi, the national flag at Ba Dinh Square in front of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is flying at half mast.

Offices in Vietnam and the country's representative agencies abroad will also fly the national flag at half mast until tomorrow.

Honor guards fly the national flag at half-mast at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi as Vietnam holds a state funeral for former Party chief Le Kha Phieu, August 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Honor guards fly the national flag at half-mast at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi as Vietnam holds a state funeral for former Party chief Le Kha Phieu, August 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Police officers are stationed on several streets around the funeral home to limit traffic. Temperature screening and the use of hand sanitizers are mandatory for people coming to pay their respects.

Phieu passed away on Friday last week in Hanoi. He was 89.

He served in several positions in the military between 1946 and 1992, rising to colonel general and head of the general political department of the People's Army.

Phieu was elected a member of the Party Central Committee in 1991 and then into the Secretariat, which is in charge of the Party's administrative affairs, in June 1992.

He became a member of the Politburo, the Party's decision-making body, in January 1994.

In December 1997 he was elected General Secretary of the Party, a position he held until April 2001.

 
 
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