Video: Body of Kofi Annan flown back to Ghana

The body of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been flown back to Ghana for a State funeral.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo received the widow, Nane Annan and family at Kotoka International Airport on Monday.

Kenya’s Raila Odinga is expected to attend the funeral service on Thursday.

On Monday, six Ghanaian soldiers carried the casket draped with the U.N. flag off the plane.

The U.N. flag was then replaced with the red, yellow and green flag of Annan’s homeland in a solemn ceremony attended by Annan’s family and senior Ghanaian and U.N. officials.

The body of Kofi Annan will lie in state at the Accra International Conference Center where the public is invited to pay their respects before the State funeral on Thursday.

The Nobel Laureate and first African to serve as U.N. secretary-general died on August 18 in Bern, Switzerland.

The 80-year-old was renowned in Kenya for having brokered a peace deal between the then President Mwai Kibaki and Opposition leader Raila Odinga at the height of the 2007/8 post election violence.

The famous “secret envelope” that contained the Waki report was handed to Kofi Annan and in July 2009, the peace envoy handed it over to Luis Moreno Ocampo.

At the time, Ocampo was the main prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Hague-based court would later use the document to charge six suspects: William Ruto, Uhuru Kenyatta, Henry Kosgey, Francis Muthaura, Hussein Ali and Joshua Arap Sang.

However, all the cases collapsed with the last two being terminated in 2016; the ICC later admitting to lapses in its prosecutorial strategy.

Kofi Annan kept a low profile over the last few years and little was known about him except the work that he did through his foundation.

Additional reporting from VOA