SEOUL - HUNDREDS of South Koreans turned out on Saturday for the funeral of a 40-year-old activist who set himself alight to protest a US beef import deal that has sparked massive demonstrations here.

Around 500 mourners, some carrying black banners and wearing black ribbons, took part in a funeral procession, marching from a hospital morgue to a square outside Seoul City Hall.

Lee Byung Ryol died in hospital on Monday, 15 days after he doused himself with paint thinner and set himself on fire at a street rally in the southern city of Jeonju.

Activists hailed Mr Lee as the first martyr in the campaign to stop beef imports and said they would continue his work.

'Friend, you go at ease now, leaving your unfinished job in the hands of young netizens,' activist leader Chung Kwang Hoon said in a statement titled 'we will struggle to achieve a martyr's wish'.

The mourners processed past an altar set up for Mr Lee in the city's main square, where the funeral was held, and laid white chrysanthemums and burned incense before a portrait decorated with black strips of cloth.

He will be buried in the southwestern city of Gwangju later on Saturday.

Seoul signed a deal in April to resume most US beef imports, sparking mass demonstrations by opponents who claim the meat could expose Koreans to the human form of mad cow disease.

Protests spread throughout the country, bringing about 100,000 people onto the streets in Seoul on Tuesday.

A candle-light protest due to take place here later Saturday is expected to draw some 10,000 people.

President Lee Myung Bak, who took power in February vowing to reactivate the sluggish economy, has seen his popularity ratings tumble from close to 60 per cent to around 20 per cent as the beef row eats into his credibility.

South Korean officials have been struggling to allay the public fury, with trade minister Kim Jong Hoon rushing to Washington Friday to try to secure extra health safeguards.

Seoul insists it cannot meet protesters' demands to renegotiate the deal, saying this would jeopardise a separate wider free trade agreement (FTA) and cast doubt on South Korea's good faith as a negotiator.

But it is seeking a voluntary agreement by exporters and importers to exclude older US cattle, seen as potentially more at risk from the disease. -- AFP

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