Official ceremony for late Iraqi Shiite leader to be held Friday

Middle East News

Aug 27, 2009, 15:48 GMT

Baghdad - The official funeral ceremony for late Iraqi Shiite leader Abdulaziz al-Hakim will be held on Friday, according to a media spokesman of his former party, the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq. Abdullatif al-Amidi said that al-Hakim's body will arrive in Baghdad from Tehran Airport aboard a private plane on Thursday, and will then be transported to al-Khadhemiya in Baghdad for a funeral service. Al-Hakim's body will then be taken to the holy Shiite city of Najaf to be buried next to his brother, al-Amidi told the Voices of Iraq news agency. The leader of one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite political groups died on Wednesday at a Tehran hospital where he had been receiving treatment from lung cancer for the past four months. Al-Hakim has been the head of the council since the assassination of his elder brother Mohamed Baqer al-Hakim in an explosion in the southern city of Najaf in 2003. The Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq which was founded in the early 1980s with the help of Iran, is a powerful party that has long formed the backbone of the dominant Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition of over 20 groups. Earlier on Thursday, al-Iraqia TV reported that Iraqi government declared a three-day official mourning period for the death of al-Hakim.

Middle East

Official ceremony for late Iraqi Shiite leader to be held Friday

Middle East News

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