BUCHAREST, Romania — The casket carrying the body of Ion Iliescu, Romania’s first elected president after the bloody fall of communism in 1989, was transferred on Wednesday from the hospital where he died to the capital’s presidential palace for a state funeral as his death continues to divide opinion.

Eight soldiers carried the casket into a grand hall at Cotroceni Palace, where it lay in state draped with Romania’s tricolor flag, as an Orthodox religious ceremony was held to mark the passing of the divisive former president . Iliescu died on Tuesday, aged 95, after he was diagnosed in June with lung cancer.

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