The remains of Libya’s Chief of Staff, General Mohamed Al-Haddad, along with four of his advisers and three crew members, will be returned to Libya on Saturday.
Okay News had reported that they died in a plane crash near Ankara. The victims were aboard a Falcon 50 business jet that crashed less than 40 minutes after taking off from Turkey on Tuesday.
The Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler led a brief military ceremony at the Murted air base ahead of the repatriation.
Investigators have recovered the aircraft’s black box, while Turkish officials said preliminary findings point to an electrical failure.
However, the full investigation will be handled by a neutral country, with Germany mentioned as a possible lead investigator.
The crash has triggered rare unity in Libya, with both the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity and the eastern administration aligned with Khalifa Haftar declaring three days of national mourning.
Libya has remained politically divided since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, though the incident has briefly brought rival factions together in grief.
