Bernice King at her mother Coretta Scott King’s funeral in Lithonia, Georgia. (Reuters)

Lithonia (Georgia), Feb. 7 (Reuters): Speakers seized on the presence of President George W. Bush to attack his policies yesterday at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the first lady of the US civil rights movement.

Jimmy Carter, one of four Presidents to speak, took a jab at Bush’s domestic eavesdropping programme during six hours of sermons, speeches and song for the late widow of Nobel peace laureate Martin Luther King Jr, assassinated in 1968.

The 10,000 mourners also heard the Reverend Joseph Lowery, a civil-rights leader, cite Coretta King’s legacy as a champion of racial equality while launching barbs at Bush administration policies on Iraq and health care.

Coretta King, 78, died on January 30 of complications from ovarian cancer. Her funeral at a Baptist church in Lithonia, Georgia, drew a “who’s who” of the political and entertainment worlds and the US civil rights community.

She was buried alongside her husband at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-violent Social Change she founded in nearby Atlanta.

With Washington debating the legality of Bush’s domestic eavesdropping on Americans suspected of ties to al Qaida, Carter drew spirited applause with comments on federal efforts to spy on the Kings decades ago.

“It was difficult for them personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance,” Carter said.

Former President Bill Clinton, a favourite among mainstream civil rights leaders, offered a teasing hint of the possible presidential candidacy of his wife, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I’m honoured to be here with my President and my former Presidents and ...,” he trailed off, motioning in his wife’s direction.