AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The body of renown filmmaker Moustapha Akkad was taken Saturday to his Syrian hometown of Aleppo for burial after he was killed in a suicide attack in Jordan.
Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said Prime Minister Adnan Badran accompanied an overland convoy that carried Akkad's body to the Syrian border.
Akkad, 72, died Friday after he was seriously injured in Wednesday night's triple attacks on three hotels in the Jordanian capital, which killed a total of 60 people and injured 100 others.
Akkad's 33-year-old daughter, Rima, was immediately killed in the suicide attack in the Grand Hyatt Hotel lobby, where her father was receiving her upon her arrival from Beirut.
Father and daughter were in Jordan to attend a wedding ceremony in the Red Sea resort of Aqaba on Friday. Rima Akkad was buried in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday.
Muasher said Badran and his Syrian counterpart, Mohammad Naji Etri, who received the filmmaker's body, held talks at the Jordanian-Syrian borders.
Akkad became known in the Arab world for his 1976 film, "The Message," on the life of Prophet Mohammad and the birth of Islam, which starred Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas.
He also directed "Omar al-Mukhtar: Lion of the Desert," about a Libyan rebel leader who fought the Italian occupation of the north African country between 1911 and 1931.
Akkad was executive producer of all eight "Halloween" movies, as well as the 1985 horror film, "Appointment with Fear" and the 1986 comedy, "Free Ride."
Al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the bombings at the Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels in Amman.
