BEIRUT (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Lebanese choked downtown Beirut to pay tribute to assassinated Christian leader Pierre Gemayel on Thursday.Sunni Muslim, Druze and Christian leaders have accused Syria of killing Gemayel, scion of one of Lebanon’s most prominent Maronite families. Damascus has condemned his murder.

The anti-Syrian camp says the aim of the Syrian-backed opposition is to weaken Lebanon’s Western-supported government and scupper a U.N.-backed tribunal to try suspects in last year’s assassination of ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri."They will not suppress our demands for the truth, justice and the international court," Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told the crowd, speaking behind a bullet-proof screen. He stressed this was no time for strife. "At this moment and above pain and above wounds, we are for dialogue," he said.

Our sincere condoleances to the gemayel Family and the Kataeb party and this great loss to Lebanon. Pierre Gemayel a unique asset to Lebanon.

 BEIRUT, Lebanon – Prominent anti-Syrian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his Phalange Party Voice of Lebanon radio station reported. The shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon.

Gemayel was rushed to a nearby hospital, according to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. and the Voice of Lebanon, the Phalange Party mouthpiece reported. The party later announced that he was dead.Gemayel, the minister of industry and son of former President Amin Gemayel.He was named for his grandfather, who founded the Phalange Party in 1936 to exert Christian power in Lebanon. It dominated Christian politics for decades after Lebanon’s independence from France in 1943.

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BEIRUT (BBC) – A sixth minister has resigned from the Lebanese government, which was plunged into a political crisis when all five Shia cabinet members quit. Environment Minister Yacoub Sarraf, a Christian, is an ally of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud like his Shia colleagues from Hezbollah and Amal.

They resigned after calls for a greater role in government were rejected. But a cabinet meeting to consider a UN plan to try killers of former PM Rafik Hariri went ahead despite the ructions. "I don’t see myself belonging to any constitutional authority in which an entire sect is absent," Mr. Sarraf said in his letter of resignation, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Mr. Lahoud said on Sunday that as a result of the resignations, the government had lost its legitimacy – but constitutional experts have disputed his interpretation of the situation. The cabinet, normally made up Christian and Muslim ministers in equal numbers, has retained the two-thirds of its members necessary to make up a quorum.

All five Hizbullah and Amal ministers resigned from Premier Fouad Saniora