Commander-in-Chief Oscar Izurieta (left) of the Chilean army gives the national flag that draped the coffin of former dictator Augusto Pinochet to the former president's widow, Lucia Hiriart, at the end of his funeral Mass in the courtyard of the Military College in Santiago, yesterday. - Reuters

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters):

Hecklers angry at the government shouted over the sound of choirs at the funeral yesterday of Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator whose repressive rule from 1973 to 1990 made him infamous around the world for human rights abuses.

Some 3,000 relatives, friends and top Chilean military officers packed a courtyard in the grounds of a military college in Santiago to pay their respects to a man who continues to polarise Chilean public opinion, even in death.

The centre-left government denied Pinochet, who died on Sunday aged 91, the full state funeral usually reserved for former presidents, angering Pinochet supporters who view him as having saved the country from communism and chaos.

President Michelle Bachelet, who was tortured during Pinochet's rule, did not attend, and when her representative, Defence Minister Vivianne Blanlot, arrived, she was heckled and whistled at by mourners.

As the protests drowned out the noise of the funeral choir, the priest conducting the ceremony appealed for calm.