TOKYO, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - A thousand mourners paid their final respects Monday to a Japanese journalist shot dead by troops in Myanmar while covering mass pro-democracy demonstrations last month.

Kenji Nagai, 50, was killed on September 27 in Yangon as he filmed the crackdown on protesters by Myanmar's junta after demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

Television footage showed him apparently being shot at close range by security forces.

TOKYO, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Mourners paid their final respects Monday to a Japanese freelance journalist shot dead by troops in Myanmar while covering mass pro-democracy demonstrations last month.

Kenji Nagai, 50, was killed on September 27 in Yangon as he filmed the crackdown on protesters by Myanmar's junta after demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

He appeared to have been shot at close range by security forces, according to television footage. Nagai's family members, journalists and refugees who fled the junta lamented his death at the funeral held in Tokyo.

YANGON, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Prayers were said and flowers offered Tuesday in a sombre ceremony at the scene where Japanese video-journalist Kenji Nagai was shot dead in Myanmar's main city Yangon.

Nagai's employer, APF News president Toru Yamaji, bent down to touch the spot on the road where the veteran journalist was gunned down last Thursday as he filmed a military crackdown on mass anti-government protests.

Flanked by two diplomats from the Japanese embassy in Yangon, he laid two large baskets of white flowers at the scene, witnesses saw.