Anna Nicole Smith buried in Bahamas

Nassau, Bahamas: Former Playboy pin-up Anna Nicole Smith was laid to rest in the Bahamas on Friday as a flock of doves flew skyward, following a three-week battle for her corpse and amid legal wrangling over her five-month-old baby.

Smith's brown coffin, which was draped in pink sequined fabric with feathers and tassels that fluttered in the warm island breeze, was placed in a grave next to her dead son Daniel while a raucous crowd of onlookers cheered and shouted outside Nassau's Lakeview cemetery.

Earlier, the body of Smith, a tabloid media fixture whose sudden death in Florida at age 39 on February 8 touched off a media frenzy, was taken in a hearse under police escort, carloads of paparazzi in tow and television helicopters buzzing overhead, from a morgue to Miami airport as dawn broke.

Twenty-four doves were released over the grave of the tabloid star, whose sudden death in Florida on February 8 at age 39 touched off a media maelstrom.

In attendance were all of those who had feuded bitterly over the corpse, and over Smith's baby daughter Dannielynn, a potential multimillionaire if her estate one day wins a decade-long battle to inherit from a former oil tycoon husband.

Her estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, who wanted her daughter buried in her native Texas, was accompanied by a reporter from the Splash news agency.

Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend who claims to be Dannielynn's father, was accompanied by his lawyer. The crowd outside the cemetery chanted his name. He came and left waving to fans.

Howard K. Stern, Smith's longtime companion and who is listed as Dannielynn's father on her birth certificate, remained standing at the burial site after the others had gone. Stern had insisted on burying her next to Daniel, who died last September in the Bahamas just days after Dannielynn was born.

Earlier, a white hearse delivered Smith's coffin to Nassau's Mount Horeb Church, where organisers said 300 guests sat inside and 300 sightseers, tourists and local residents gathered behind barricades outside.

It was still unclear what caused Smith's death. But her estate could ultimately be worth millions if it wins a legal battle to inherit from J. Howard Marshall, a billionaire whom she married when she was 26 and he was 89.

Popular Bahamian talk show host Darold Miller broadcast live from outside the church.

"This is a chapter we want closed so that we can move on and deal with the real issues in this country," Miller said, referring to a general election that is expected to be held in the Atlantic island chain in May.