Mon Oct 8, 3:42 AM ET

TOKYO - Mourners paid their final respects Monday to a Japanese freelance journalist shot dead by troops in Myanmar while covering mass pro-democracy demonstrations last month.

Kenji Nagai, 50, was killed on September 27 in Yangon as he filmed the crackdown on protesters by Myanmar's junta after demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

He appeared to have been shot at close range by security forces, according to television footage. Nagai's family members, journalists and refugees who fled the junta lamented his death at the funeral held in Tokyo.

"Journalists keep records and report at the sites of news, and that's their job," said Jiro Ishimaru, the chief editor of Asia Press International, a Tokyo-based cooperative of Asian photo and video journalists.

"He was killed doing his job. This very fact breaks my heart and makes me feel frustrated," said Ishimaru, who met Nagai when reporting at the border between China and North Korea.

Police said Nagai died of massive blood loss after a bullet pierced his liver.

Myanmar insists the killing was an accident but Japan is sceptical of the explanation and has set up a taskforce to investigate whether the shooting was deliberate.

Nagai was employed by APF News, a small agency based in Tokyo that specialises in reports from countries where most Japanese television networks dare not tread.

Much of mainstream Japanese media stay away from combat zones, but a small group of Japanese independent journalists is famed for heading on tough assignments.