Xanana Gusmão slaps mourners and sleeps in street outside Timor-Leste hospital in Covid-19 protest

Country's first president joins mass rally disputing government's assertion that Armindo Borges died from coronavirus

The former prime minister of Timor-Leste Xanana Gusmao has been filmed slapping family members of a man who died in the capital, Dili, in what the government said was the country's second Covid-related death.

Gusmao - the young country's first president and a national hero - disputes the government's assertion that Armindo Borges, who died aged 47 on Sunday night, died from Covid-19, with Gusmao claiming he died from a stroke. Borges's body has been kept in the Covid isolation room at the Vera Cruz health centre.