The former Zambia president must be sent to the homeland for the burial, the rules of the South African Court Politics News

After months of the conflict, the Pretorian Supreme Court says that the Edgar Longo family should hand over his body to bury him in Zambia, against their desires.

The South African Court ruled that the former president of Zambia, Edgar Longo, who died in South Africa, should be buried in Zambia against his family’s desires.

Lungu’s burial was the subject of a two -month dispute between the Zambia government, which planned the state’s funeral in Lusaka, and his family, who wanted to bury him in South Africa.

Lungu, President of Zambia, died from 2015 to 2021, in South Africa on June 5 while receiving medical treatment.

South African Supreme Court stopped LunGu plans to bury them in Johannesburg on June 25, hours before a special ceremony began.

The Zambia government has approached the court on the pretext that Longo should be given the state’s funeral and was buried in a specific position in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, like all other presidents since independence from the United Kingdom in 1964.

The Longo family said that the late leader does not want the current president, Hakindi Hishilima – a long political competitor and behind him, at his funeral.

On Friday, Pretoria’s Supreme Court judge said that Longo’s body should “immediately” be handed over to a representative of the Zambia court system to re -burn and bury him in Lusaka.

The court said: “The president’s previous desires or the desires of his family cannot exceed the state’s right to honor this individual at the state’s funeral.”

The public prosecutor at Zambia, Mulilo Kabisha, who was in court, said the government estimated the judge’s ruling.

Longo’s sister, Batha Longo, was also in court, crying after reading the ruling.

The National National Party said that the family “submitted an appeal against the ruling.”

Lungu was elected to lead the country of copper -rich in South Africa in 2015, but he lost the elections six years later to Hichilema, from the United National Development Party.

Since then, his wife and children have been accused of corruption and possession of suspected crime revenues, while the family has claimed part of political revenge.

Lungu’s daughter, Tasila Longo, was arrested in February for money laundering, after previously arrested with her mother and sister on charges of fraud in 2024.

She faces her brother, Dalitsu, with corruption.