Royally-sponsored bathing rite, funeral held for late Thai DPM Sanan

BANGKOK, February 16 (TNA) - A royally-sponsored funeral for a late Thai deputy prime minister, Major General Sanan Kachornprasart, will begin on Saturday evening at the Chonlaprathan Rangsarit Temple in Bangkok's suburban Nonthaburi Province. Prior to Major General Sanan's seven-day funeral, a royally-sponsored bathing rite will be held for him at 5pm today, to be honourably presided by the President of Thailand's Privy Council and Stateman and a former prime minister, General Prem Tinsulanonda. Major General Sanan, a native of Thailand's lower northern Pichit Province, passed away at Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital on Friday evening at the age of 77 from a severe blood infection, which caused his circulatory and respiratory systems to fail. The veteran Thai politician, had been treated at Siriraj Hospital, with life support, since November 22, 2012, after suffering acute coughing and complications from emphysema. The late Thai deputy premier, who was the chief adviser of the coalition Chartthai Pattana Party and owned the country's biggest ostrich farm and a vineyard which produces the famed Chateau de Chalawan wine before he passed away, is the father of incumbent Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Siriwat Kachornprasart. (TNA)