The Pretoria High Courts ruling comes weeks after it blocked Edgar Chagwa Lungus family from burying him privately in South Africa

South Africa's High Court has ordered the release of former Zambian President Edgar Chagwa Lungu's body for repatriation to Zambia for a state funeral.

"The court in this case concluded that the government of Zambia is entitled to proceed with the state funeral for the late president of Zambia," Deputy Judge President of the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa, Aubrey Ledwaba, delivered the judgment on Friday afternoon.

"The order of the court reads as follows ... it is ordered that the applicant (government of Zambia) is entitled to repatriate the body of the late president, Edgar Lungu, for a state funeral and burial thereafter in Embassy Park, in Lusaka, Republic of Zambia."

The family members were ordered to surrender the body of the former president to representatives of the Zambian government to enable repatriation.

A month ago, IOL reported that the government of the Republic of Zambia said it would abide by the ruling of South African courts in the tense standoff over the burial of the mortal remains of the country's former president.

One of Africa's deepest episodes of political rivalry and animosity played out before South African courts, with Lungu's family saying one of the former president's dying wishes was that his successor and political nemesis, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, should not go anywhere near his body.

However, state funeral arrangements made in Zambia, in anticipation of receiving the former president's mortal remains in Lilongwe, had Hichilema at the center, as the commander-in-chief of the Zambian Defence Forces.

The Zambian government had planned State funeral arrangements in Zambia, in anticipation of receiving the former president's mortal remains in Lilongwe, with Hichilema at the center of the ceremony.

Last month, IOL reported that the High Court in Pretoria had unexpectedly halted plans by the family to bury the former president in South Africa. The court ruling was delivered just moments before a private ceremony was set to commence in Gauteng.

The Pretoria court's decision marked another development in the ongoing heated dispute between Lungu's family and the Zambian government over the former head of state's final resting place.

Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died on 5 June in South Africa, where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness. He was 68.

First published by IOL

(RT.com)