Abiola's body is received by grieving family members at the family compound in Lagos

LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) - The body of Nigerian opposition leader Moshood Abiola was buried at his family home Saturday after Muslim funeral rites, witnesses said.

"The body was lowered into Mother Earth at exactly four minutes to four," said a reporter in the crowded family home in the northern district of Lagos.

Wrapped in a simple white shroud, Abiola was lowered into the freshly dug grave underneath a coconut tree and next to the tomb of his first wife, Sumidat, who died in 1992 of cancer.

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Hundreds of supporters, well-wishers and family members came into the six-acre compound after police withdrew at the request of the family.

Abiola's burial followed an autopsy overnight by an international team of pathologists who were due to announce their results at a news conference later in the day. Full details will take at least three weeks.

Abiola died Tuesday in military custody and some of his supporters have accused the military government of killing the 60-year-old Muslim tycoon, who had been detained since 1994 for declaring himself president on the basis of 1993 elections which were annulled as he was poised to win.

Abiola's death triggered days of rioting and violence in Lagos and elsewhere in southern Nigeria, where at least 55 people were killed and more than 400 arrested.

Abiola, a wealthy ethnic Yoruba businessman, died while discussing terms for his release with a U.S. delegation.

A letter from Abiola to the opposition NADECO group published in his own newspaper on Saturday denied that during recent negotiations to secure his release he renounced the election victory claim for which he was arrested in 1994.

"The June 11, 1994, declaration (when he proclaimed himself president and was arrested) still subsists and has served and is still serving the purpose for which it was made," said the letter dated July 5, 1998, to NADECO chairman Senator Abraham Adesanya and published in the Concord newspaper.

There has been much controversy that Abiola told United Nations Secretary general Kofi Annan and Commonwealth Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku, who saw him last week that he did not expect to walk out of jail and be installed as president.

"We believe that this letter has finally put paid to the wicked allegation of any trade-off by the departed symbol of the current democratic struggle," NADECO said in a statement.

Abiola, an immensely popular southern businessman from the Yoruba clan, posed a serious threat to the ruling military's stranglehold on power. In Nigeria, the upper echelons of power are filled with conservative northern Muslims from the Hausa clan.

Fearing an escalation in the violence, riot police continued to watch over the city's mosques on Saturday.

The Hausa-Yoruba enmity was born after Nigeria's 1960 independence from Britain. Hausa and closely related Fulani northerners have ruled Nigeria ever since.

Southerners, both ethnically and religiously different from their Hausa and Fulani compatriots, have long resented what they consider the exploitation of their resources -- oil and other minerals -- by northern rulers.

These days, Nigeria's pro-democracy movement is largely led by southerners, particularly Yorubas.

The bodies of nine Hausas were discovered earlier in the week in a predominantly Yoruba neighborhood, backing up fears of inter-ethnic violence.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.