PRAGUE - World leaders will join Czech dignitaries to pay homage to Velvet Revolution icon and former president Vaclav Havel at his state funeral in an historic Prague cathedral on Friday.
Among those expected are French President Nicolas Sarkozy, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli President Shimon Peres, officials and local media said.
Austrian President Heinz Fischer, Slovenian President Danilo Turk, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic and outgoing Prime Minister Iveta Radicova have also confirmed they will attend.
Czechs continued to pay tribute to Havel, a dissident playwright who earned a special place in their hearts for leading them through the bloodless 1989 Velvet Revolution, which brought about the end of Soviet-backed communism in then Czechoslovakia.
Havel, who served as president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992 and subsequently the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003, died on Sunday aged 75 following a protracted illness.
"The Czech nation and the whole of Europe has lost the most important Czech of the 20th century, so it's good that the state will honour him," Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, former head of Havel's office and a close friend, said Monday.
Flags flew at half mast across the Czech Republic on Tuesday ahead of three days of national mourning from Wednesday through Friday, the day of Havel's funeral in St Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle, the seat of Czech presidents.
Czech lawmakers met to honour the former president on Tuesday.
The government of neighbouring Slovakia declared Friday a day of national mourning.
Crowds lined up outside a former church in central Prague for a second day Tuesday to pay their respects at Havel's coffin, while hundreds of people signed condolence books at Prague Castle.
On Wednesday, a ceremonial march will take Havel's coffin to Vladislav Hall at Prague Castle on a horse-drawn gun carriage that was also used for the funeral of the first Czechoslovak president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk in 1937.
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