South Africa court rules ex-Zambian President to be buried in Zambia

The late Zambia President Edgar Lungu in 2017. [AFP]

A South African court ruled Friday that Zambia's former president Edgar Lungu, who died in South Africa on June 5, should be buried in Zambia, against his family's wishes.

Lungu's burial has been the subject of a two-month dispute between Zambia's government, which had planned a state funeral for him in Lusaka, and his family, who wanted him buried in South Africa.

Lungu's widow and children blocked his body from being repatriated, saying he would not have wanted his political rival current Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema at his funeral.

Zambia in turn had filed a lawsuit halting his burial in South Africa while the funeral was already underway.

A court in Pretoria ruled on Friday that Zambian law prevailed.

"A former president's personal wishes or the wishes of his family cannot outweigh the right of the state to honour that individual with a state funeral," it added.

The judge ordered the family "to immediately surrender the body of the late president" to the Zambian authorities to allow for its repatriation and burial in Lusaka.

The cause of Lungu's death at the age of 68 was not announced, but his Patriotic Front party said he had been receiving specialised treatment in a clinic in Pretoria.

He was elected to lead the copper-rich southern African country in 2015 but lost elections six years later to Hichilema, from the United Party for National Development.

Since then, his wife and children have been charged with corruption and possession of suspected proceeds of crime in what the family has claimed is part of a political vendetta.

Lungu's daughter Tasila Lungu was arrested in February on money laundering charges, having previously been detained with her mother and sister on fraud charges in 2024.