A plane carrying Mugabe’s body was due to leave Singapore at 8:50 a.m. (0040 GMT), the programme of events showed.

Police motorbikes lined up outside the Singapore Casket, a funeral parlour where Mugabe’s body was being held, in a sign that a dignitary would soon be departing.

Mugabe’s body was expected to arrive in Zimbabwe on Wednesday at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT), a family member told Reuters.

Mugabe died on Friday aged 95 in Singapore, where he had long received medical treatment. He had dominated Zimbabwean politics for almost four decades from independence in 1980 until he was removed by his own army in a November 2017 coup.

Revered by many as a liberator who freed his people from white minority rule, Mugabe was vilified by others for wrecking one of Africa’s most promising economies and ruthlessly crushing his opponents.

Mugabe’s family is pushing back against the government’s plan to bury him at the National Heroes Acre monument in the Zimbabwe capital Harare and wants him to be interred in his home village, relatives have told Reuters. (Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Michael Perry)