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Ghanaian journalist Ahmed Husein, who helped expose corruption in African football, was hailed Friday as a "national hero" as his friends and family gathered for his funeral.
The 34-year-old journalist was shot dead as he was returning home Wednesday evening in the Madina area of Accra, in a killing that provoked outrage.
Husein was part of an investigative team that unveiled the corruption in the sport last year, which led to the sanction of a group of senior officials, coaches and referees.
His body, wrapped in a white shroud, was transferred from an Accra morgue, in a mosque in Madina, before prayers, followed by calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
Anas Aremeyaw Anas, head of productions Tiger Eye, who led the investigation into corruption, said an AFP reporter.
The president of Ghana's Association of Journalists, Affial Monney, told AFP: "We have lost a national hero with regard to investigative journalism."
Before his body was deposited in the ground at the nearby Muslim cemetery, the imam told the bereaved that Husein "was working for the nation to expose the corruption".
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Police said Husein was shot in the chest and neck. Anas and Tiger Eye said that the gunmen opened fire on a motorcycle and that he died instantly.
The badbadination shocked Ghana, which prides itself on being a stable democracy in an often turbulent region and where media freedom is relatively high and improving.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2018 World Press Freedom Index, Ghana ranks 23rd out of 180 countries, three places higher than the year before.
Husein complained to the police after a member of parliament, the new patriotic party, in power of President Nana Akufo-Addo, called on his supporters to find him and beat him.
Kennedy Agyapong appeared on television, showed the reporter's photo and described it as "very dangerous". He promised to pay everyone who attacked him.
On Thursday, he denied allegations that he "manipulated the murder" and claimed that he had never been offended by Husein. But his vision of his work, and that of Anas, seemed unchanged.
"The harm they have done will follow them," he added.
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