Vietnam prepares state funeral for former Party chief Le Kha Phieu

The ceremony will be chaired by current Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong.

Phieu, 89, had made "great contributions to the glorious revolutionary cause of the Party and country," the Party Central Committee, the National Assembly, the President, the Government and the Vietnam Fatherland Front said in a statement released Monday.

Former Communist Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu. Photo by VnExpress/Hoang An.

The deceased leader will lie in state at the National Funeral House in Hanoi for mourners to pay their respect from 8 a.m. August 14 until noon the next day.

A memorial service will be held at 12:30 p.m. and Le Kha Phieu will be buried at Mai Dich cemetery in Hanoi.

Memorial ceremonies will be held at the same time at the Independence Palace in Ho Chi Minh City.

For the state funeral, the national flag will be hung half-mast at offices and public places, and entertainment activities will be put on hold.

Phieu, a native of the north central Thanh Hoa Province, 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 of Vietnam.

He was elected to member of the Party Central Committee in 1991, before being elected into the Secretariat, which oversees the Party's administration 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.

He is particularly remembered for a resolution that set out a mission to boost integrity and efficiency in the Party, putting it in the frontline of corruption fight.

In 2007, he received the Gold Star Order, the highest decoration in awards and decorations given by the Vietnamese government to a person or an organization that completed exceptional service or established excellent achievement for the revolutionary cause of the Communist Party and the nation.

He also held an insignia for being a Party member for 70 years.