Former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe will be farewelled at a state funeral in a Harare sports stadium next Saturday, according to a memo sent to embassies.

Zimbabweans have been confused about when they will get to pay their last respects to Mr Mugabe following his death in a Singapore hospital on Friday after a long illness.

Revered by many as a liberator who freed his people from white minority rule, Mr Mugabe was viewed by others at home and abroad as a power-obsessed autocrat who unleashed death squads, rigged elections and ruined his nation’s economy.

Mr Mugabe dominated Zimbabwean politics for almost four decades from independence in 1980 until his removal by his own army in a November 2017 coup.

His ousting was accompanied by celebrations across the country of 13 million.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who worked closely with Mr Mugabe for decades before helping to oust him, granted Mr Mugabe the status of national hero within hours of his death.

The memo sent by Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to embassies in Harare on Sunday said the funeral would be in the National Sports Stadium but did not specify where the burial would be.

It said heads of state would be expected to leave the stadium immediately after the funeral ceremony because officials would be busy with preparations for the burial ceremony, to be held a day later.

The Zimbabwe Independent newspaper reported last month Mr Mugabe did not want to be buried at National Heroes Acre — a site reserved for the country’s heroes — because he felt bitter about the way he was removed from power.

In comments to The Sunday Mail newspaper, Mr Mnangagwa’s spokesman George Charamba rejected suggestions the Government and Mr Mugabe’s family were at loggerheads over where the former president should be buried, and said the provisional plan was for the burial to be at National Heroes Acre.

The Sunday Mail said Mr Mugabe’s body was expected to be brought back from Singapore on Wednesday afternoon (local time).

Mr Mnangagwa, members of Mr Mugabe’s family and traditional chiefs from Mr Mugabe’s Zvimba district would receive the body at Harare’s Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, it reported.

Leo Mugabe, the former president’s nephew, said earlier on Sunday Mr Mugabe’s family and traditional chiefs had finalised their preferred program for his burial but it had yet to be approved by the Government.

At the packed Sacred Heart Cathedral in Harare, where Mr Mugabe used to attend Catholic Mass with his first wife Sally and second wife Grace, people prayed on Sunday morning for the former leader.

“We are praying for our relatives who have died,” the priest told the congregation, speaking in the local Shona language.

“Without forgetting to pray for our former president, Comrade Robert Mugabe, we bring him forward to God.

“We are asking God if there is anything that he did wrong in his life that he be forgiven.”

Churchgoer Tsitsi Samukange said Mr Mugabe was a devout man who fought for his country.

“I think everyone can admit that without the work he did we would not be as independent as we are,” she said.

“You know when you fight, in a fight sometimes you lose your teeth, [right]? And we became poorer.

“But that’s a fight and he did it, and we should give him that.”

(Reuters)