Kenya mourns Moi with state funeral

Thousands of Kenyans on Tuesday gathered to mourn the country's longest serving leader, the hardline Daniel arap Moi, as a week of mourning climaxed with a state funeral.

Moi, whose 24-year rule saw Kenya become a one-party state where critical voices were ruthlessly crushed, died on February 4 aged 95.

Mourners began gathering at the stadium before dawn to pay their respects.

Moi, who towered over Kenya between 1978 and 2002, lay in state for three days in parliament, with tens of thousands of people filing past.

On Tuesday morning, he was taken on a gun carriage draped in Kenya's flag through the streets of Nairobi to the crowded Nyayo national stadium flanked by soldiers.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who opened the memorial with the national anthem, has called Moi "a father of our nation, a champion of Pan-Africanism."