The late former president Edgar Lungu family versus the government of Zambia court hearing is underway in the Pretoria High Court.
As the matter was being heard, a civic movement Progressive Forces of South Africa (PFSA) picketed outside the High Court in Pretoria calling for the expatriation of his body to Zambia .
The group said it wouldn’t want Lungu’s ghost in the form of his descendants going on to claim SA as their country.
The matter concerns the repatriation of Lungu’s remains to Zambia.
He died in June last year at the age of 68 after developing complications following surgery.
The Movement’s President, Mthetho Ngcukayithobi, says, “As black South Africans, we are still fighting the displacement during colonisation and apartheid, and graves play a very significant role in the process of claiming the land, and we don’t want the Lungu descendants to claim land in the future used by their grandfather.”
Ngcukayithobi says, “The Zambian community and government want to repatriate their president and give him a befitting burial, so we are in support of that.”
The Zambian Government and the family of former the late President Lungu are in a legal showdown in the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, over the custody and handling of his remains.
Government had filed a reconsideration application challenging a recent urgent court order which directed that Lungu’s body be returned to a private mortuary.
The order was granted shortly after authorities executed an earlier August 2025 Gauteng High Court ruling that permitted the repatriation of the former Head of State’s remains to Zambia for a State funeral and burial.
In its application, the Zambian Government argues that the Lungu family obtained the urgent order in its absence and allegedly failed to disclose key facts. Among the issues cited are the lapse of the family’s appeal before the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), the release of the body to the South African Police Service (SAPS), and ongoing investigations into the circumstances surrounding Lungu’s death.
Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha has further submitted before the Pretoria High Court that there are concerns the family may attempt to move the remains to another country.
He has since requested the court to ensure the body is returned to SAPS custody to allow completion of investigations into the cause of death.
According to an affidavit filed in court, Kabesha stressed the urgency of the matter, stating that the family, as foreign nationals, has both the capacity and motivation to relocate the remains, a move he warned could cause irreparable harm to the Zambian Government.
Last week, the Pretoria High Court facilitated the handover of the former President’s body to SAPS for a post-mortem and further investigations. This followed a development in which the Supreme Court of Appeal indicated that the Lungu family’s appeal had lapsed after failure to meet a March 30, 2026 deadline for filing submissions.
However, government clarified that repatriation would not proceed immediately, as investigations into the cause of death were still ongoing.
In a further twist, the court later issued an urgent directive ordering that the remains be returned to Two Mountains Mortuary – a decision now being contested by government.
Kabesha maintains that the order was obtained without full disclosure of existing legal proceedings and court rulings. He further argued that the body was lawfully taken into custody under South Africa’s Inquests Act of 1959, which empowers authorities to investigate suspected unnatural deaths and conduct post-mortems.
Government has since urged the court to set aside the order granted on April 22, 2026, insisting that due legal process must be followed as investigations continue.
*Part of text courtesy of SABC