ASOS billionaire holds emotional funeral service for his three children who were killed in the Sri Lanka bombings
Billionaire ASOS tycoon held a somber funeral service on Saturday for his three children who were killed in the deadly Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka.
Anders Holch Povlsen lost his daughters Alma and Agnes and son Alfred in the coordinated terror attacks against Christians last month. Astrid, his third daughter, survived the ordeal, Daily Mail reports.
The funeral was held in Aarhus, Denmark, after memorial services near the ASOS headquarters in Brande and the Aarhus suburb of Stavtrup earlier this week. It was attended by members of the Danish Royal Family and the country's Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.
Suicide bombers Zahran Hashim, suspected plot mastermind, and Ilham Ibrahim, the son of a millionaire spice merchant, conducted the serial blasts when Povlsen was staying with his family at the Shangri-La Hotel in the capital of Colombo - which was one of the targets.
While it is unclear if Povlsen was hurt during the attacks, Peter Taksøe-Jensen, Denmark's ambassador to India, did confirm that one family member was injured but was discharged soon after. The family expressed their loss as "utterly incomprehensible" at a memorial service in Brande, Denmark, last week.
Pastor Arne Holst-Larsen read the message to a crowd of around 700 well-wishers: "The loss of our beloved children Alma, Agnes and Alfred are completely incomprehensible. With the many lovely people we have around us, close friends, talented colleagues and our loving family we will come together through it. We greatly appreciate the humanity that is also shown in Brande tonight - not only to our families and children, but to all the victims of the cruel acts in Sri Lanka."
Povlsen had revealed plans to hand his sprawling Scottish estates to his children just days before they were killed. At the time, he hoped they would carry on his legacy of conserving the environment.
The Danish billionaire has been working hard to bring back endangered species in parts of Scotland by reviving long-lost habitats via his Wildland project.
Povlsen and wife Anne Storm Pedersen wrote in an open letter posted on the project's website that it will take longer than a lifetime to complete and so would be carried on by their children after them.
"It's a significant and lifelong commitment that we have made - not just for ourselves but for the Scottish people and Scottish nature too - a commitment which we believe in deeply," they wrote. "We wish to restore our parts of the Highlands to their former magnificent natural state and repair the harm that man has inflicted on them."