Algeria buries ex-president Bouteflika

ALGIERS: Algeria on Sunday buried Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the North African country’s longest-serving president, at a cemetery for its independence heroes, but without the honours accorded to his predecessors.

Bouteflika passed away on Friday aged 84, after a career which took him being from the world’s youngest foreign minister to one of its oldest heads of state, but ended with a humbling fall from power. His muted funeral, with no lying in state and just three days of national mourning instead of eight, reflected a mixed legacy that left many Algerians indifferent to the ceremony. On Sunday at his funeral, attended by his successor President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the minister for Algeria’s independence fighters, read an eulogy.