More than five months after Zambia’s former president Edgar Lungu died at a Pretoria hospital, his body remains in a South African mortuary as new allegations of poisoning and political foul play stall repatriation and intensify calls for an official investigation.
The Pretoria High Court ruled in August that Lungu’s remains must be released for repatriation to Zambia for a state funeral.
Yet his body is still held in Gauteng, with no explanation for the delay.
According to reports monitored here on Saturday, family tensions over suspicions of poisoning are said to have complicated the process.
Lungu’s daughter, Tasila Lungu-Mwansa, has suggested her father’s deteriorating health may have been caused by “external interference,” while officials from the former president’s Patriotic Front (PF) have openly alleged he was deliberately poisoned.
No forensic evidence has been made public but the PF has demanded an independent international probe.
Activists from the Progressive Forces of South Africa have petitioned Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia and Gauteng police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni to open an inquest.
In a letter to the South African Police Service, the activists argue that credible allegations of poisoning trigger a constitutional obligation under the Inquests Act.
“A failure to investigate undermines this obligation and compromises the integrity of South Africa’s justice system,” the activists wrote.
Lungu, Zambia’s sixth president, served from 2015 to 2021 before losing to current President Hakainde Hichilema.
He announced a political comeback in late 2023, but in December 2024 the Constitutional Court barred him from contesting again, a ruling his supporters denounced as politically motivated.
His sudden death in June 2025, amid rising tensions with the ruling United Party for National Development, has deepened suspicions of political sabotage.
JN/APA