ISTANBUL — Turkey’s state-run agency says the body of a New York City woman killed while on a solo vacation in Turkey is being returned home.
The Anadolu Agency says a casket carrying the remains of Sarai Sierra was loaded onto a New York-bound plane on Thursday.
The funeral will be Feb. 15 at Christian Pentecostal Church, where she met and married her husband, Steven. Burial will follow at Silver Mount Cemetery, a few blocks from the family’s Victory Boulevard apartment building.
Two viewing periods are set for Feb. 14 at the church.
The agency said Turkish Airlines is transporting the body for free.
The 33-year-old mother of two was found dead 12 days after she went missing in Istanbul. Police said she was killed by a blow to the head and are still trying to find her attacker or attackers.
Yesterday it was revealed that Sierra not only hung out with a “criminal element” on her dream European vacation — she also made room in her busy itinerary for a secret rendezvous with an Internet beau.
The amateur photographer who left her husband and two young sons in New York for the trip overseas to take pictures had sex the day before she vanished with a man she’d first met online last fall.
The fellow, identified only as Taylan, told police he had consensual sex with Sierra on Jan. 19, after a first date in the bustling tourist city Jan. 13, according to Turkish newspaper Vatan.
He hoped to see her again, but she never responded to his messages, Taylan told cops.
Taylan’s revelation came as The Post first reported that FBI investigators in Turkey are looking into Sierra’s ties to “sketchy characters” in Istanbul.
“She gets there, and the first people she met up with were a criminal element,” a source said.
Federal agents are still in the early stages of their probe and want to know whether Sierra got involved with drug traffickers, human traffickers or efforts to transport jewels or currency illegally, a law-enforcement source said yesterday.
The adventurous Sierra left New York for her solo trip Jan. 7 with a credit card, $400 in cash, running shoes, high heels and her iPhone and iPad, her husband, Steven Sierra, told investigators.
She was found dead of a single blow to the head in a seedy area of Istanbul Feb. 2, nearly two weeks after she failed to show up for a Jan. 21 flight home.
Taylan, who has been extensively interviewed by Turkish authorities, had previously denied a physical relationship with Sierra and claims he was not involved in her disappearance or murder.
He is one of 22 people that Turkish police have taken sperm and/or blood samples from as they hunt for Sierra’s killer.
Meanwhile, Istanbul police said they continue to press witnesses — including a tipster who claimed he saw Sierra with a group of men known for hustling and harassing tourists.
The tipster told cops he first saw Sierra Jan. 11, speaking to a man outside the popular Sultanahmet Mosque in Istanbul. The man handed her a card, Turkish newspaper Milliyet reported.
After leaving the mosque, Sierra was seen talking to the man and “took a walk” with him and four or five other men, the tipster said.
Sierra flew to Amsterdam Jan. 15 and to Munich the next day, returning to Istanbul Jan. 19.
The tipster told authorities he next saw Sierra with the same man Jan. 21, at Topkapi Palace.
Additional reporting by Josh Margolin and AP