Lithuania Gives 7 Slain Officers a Hero’s Burial : The Baltics: Thousands line the streets in the capital of rebel Soviet republic. Unknown killers shot the men at a customs post.

VILNIUS, Soviet Union —  Lithuania gave seven slain law officers a hero’s burial Saturday, and tens of thousands of people lined streets in the breakaway republic to watch the flag-draped coffins pass by.

The identity of their killers is unknown, but the Lithuanian Parliament is calling the murders at a customs post Wednesday “an escalation” of previous attacks on such posts by Soviet troops.

“Christ died for the love of others, and today we are mourning seven sons who gave their lives for their country and sacrificed themselves for our freedom,” said the Rev. Jonas Boruta in his funeral sermon at the Vilnius Cathedral.

The seven were buried on a forested hillside in the national cemetery, alongside another customs officer killed two months ago and nine of the 15 Lithuanians killed in January when Soviet troops attacked unarmed demonstrators at the Vilnius broadcasting tower.

Investigators say eight police and customs officers were forced to lie together on the floor of their small border post just before dawn Wednesday. The killers then sprayed them with automatic weapons fire and then shot each man once in the head.

One man, customs officer Tomas Cernas, survived. He is showing signs that he may regain consciousness and eventually be able to identify his attackers, said Dr. Juozas Olekas, the Lithuanian health minister.

Cernas, 29, is being kept under armed guard at the Kaunas Neurological Center in central Lithuania.

At the request of the Lithuanian government, the U.S. government is sending an American military neurosurgeon from Germany to help treat Cernas. The surgeon was expected to arrive later Saturday, Olekas said.

Jack Gosnell, the U.S. consul general in Leningrad, said the specialist was being called in for humanitarian reasons. Gosnell, on a visit to Lithuania, attended the state funeral to express American condolences.

Lithuania established the customs posts after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in March, 1990. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has called the independence declaration and the customs posts illegal.

Since January, there have been 22 other attacks on Lithuanian customs posts in which two people were killed and more than 20 injured.

Saturday’s funeral began with a procession from the Vilnius Sports Arena, where tens of thousands of Lithuanians have been filing past the bodies to pay their respects since Thursday.

Hundreds of police, Lithuanian defense force troops and male and female customs officers, as well as children and adults dressed in Lithuanian folk costumes, marched along the streets as honor guards. Many people wept openly.

Lithuanian flags flew everywhere--in the procession, in the hands of spectators and even at the closed front gate of a Soviet military base on the procession’s route to the cemetery.

At the Soviet Interior Ministry across the street, several soldiers in full combat gear could be seen inside.

Two Roman Catholic bishops and four priests celebrated the funeral Mass in the soaring white cathedral.

Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis stood near the row of seven coffins, adorned with photographs of each of the victims.