Hundreds of friends and relatives turned out on Sunday for the funerals of two people killed by a gunman during the shooting rampage on the Fourth of July at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
James Hahn, Mayor of Los Angeles city, was among the mourners at the service in North Hollywood for Yaakov Aminov, a 46-year-oldJewish diamond importer.
"We should honor Yaakov's memory by affirming our commitment to one another, by condemning the ... act that took him from us," Hahn said.
After the service, Aminov's body was put on a plane of the Israel's national airline, El Al, to be flown to Israel, where burial was planned for Monday.
Victoria Hen, 25, who was behind the airline's ticketing counter when shot, reportedly started working for El Al just a couple of months ago, and was killed one day before her boyfriend was to propose marriage to her, said family spokesperson Joe Knoller at a later service in a Los Angeles suburb.
"One of her goals in life was to find a loving, caring husband and to settle down with a beautiful family, which she probably would have had," said Knoller.
Hesham Mohamed Hadayet was the fourth person in line at the El Al counter when he opened fire on Thursday, the very day Americans celebrated their independence. He killed Aminov and Hen and wounded three others. Authorities said he fired 10 or 11 bullets before he was killed by an El Al security guard.
The FBI said it still doesn't know why Hadayet targeted the ticket area of Israel's national airline.
(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2002)
