NEW YORK (Court TV) — The story that started in the Bronx spans two continents.

As the body of Ahmed "Amadou" Diallo, the 22-year-old West African immigrant shot to death by four New York police officers, was flown back to his homeland of Guinea, residents there joined the outcry condemning his death.

Diallo died on Feb. 4, gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets in the vestibule of his modest brick apartment building in the Soundview section of the South Bronx.

Four plainclothes police officers all fired at Diallo. Their lawyer said they believed Daillo was armed, but he was carrying only a pager and a beeper.

His friends and family describe Diallo as a unassuming street vendor, sports fan, and devout Muslim, with no history of getting into trouble either in Guinea or New York, where he moved in 1996.

The officers have not been arrested or charged, but a grand jury is set to start hearing testimony in the case today.

The violence of the killing quickly made headlines and sent shock waves rippling through minority communities that have long complained of excessive police force.

Now those ripples have spread across the Atlantic. Thousands of people joined a motorcade Sunday escorting Diallo's body to Newark International Airport on Sunday. Hundreds of Guineans met the Continental Airlines jet which brought Diallo's body to Conakry, Guinea on Monday night.

On Tuesday morning, hundreds more mourners lined up in the shade of a giant mango tree to pay their respects to Diallo's parents, who flew to New York to reclaim their son. On Wednesday, Diallo will be buried in his hometown of Djountou.

"It is very important that our son return home and is buried in his home village," said Diallo's father, Saikou Amadou Diallo. "We want our children and our children's children not to forget him."

Diallo is not likely to be forgotten soon, on either side of the Atlantic. His death has become a rallying cry against police violence and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whom critics say has been slow to crack down on police violence in New York's 38,000-person force.

Diallo's parents, quickly taken under the wing of African-American activist Rev. Al Sharpton when they arrived in New York, spurned Giuliani's attempts to meet with them and the mayor and his police commissioner were shouted at when they attended a memorial service for the slain street peddler.

Sharpton, who accompanied the bereaved parents to Guinea, organized large street rallies in New York to demand that the officers be brought to justice and that police violence be brought to a halt.

On Monday, hundreds of Washington D.C.-area activists rallied in front of the White House, the Capitol, and the Justice Department building to protest the shooting, which one NAACP member called a "modern-day lynching."

Sharpton and other activists, along with many New York politicians, have called for a federal investigation into the killing. Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson is investigating the case.

The officers have not yet been charged, but a grand jury is starting to hear testimony Tuesday.

Court TV's Catherine Heins and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright© 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.