EXCLUSIVE: CORRESPONDENCE REVEALS COLLAPSE OF LUNGU FAMILY’S LEGAL POSITION AS REMAINS PASS INTO STATE CUSTODY
EXCLUSIVE: CORRESPONDENCE REVEALS COLLAPSE OF LUNGU FAMILY’S LEGAL POSITION AS REMAINS PASS INTO STATE CUSTODY
The body of Zambia’s late Sixth President, Edgar Lungu, is now held by the South African Police Service at a state facility, after every remaining legal avenue the family had relied upon to block repatriation quietly fell away. A letter seen exclusively by Open Zambia sets out how, and why, the stand-off ended.
The correspondence, issued by ENSafrica on behalf of Two Mountains Burial Services to the Lungu family’s attorneys, lays out a sequence of events that cannot be reconciled with the family’s public position. No order reinstating the family’s appeal at the South African Supreme Court of Appeal has ever been produced. No undertaking was forthcoming on the family’s terms. Both the Government of Zambia’s legal team and SAPS held firm on the Pretoria High Court’s ruling of 8 August 2025, which directed that the remains be released to the Zambian state.
Confronted with a binding court order and no countervailing legal instrument, Two Mountains, the private burial services company that had, until now, held the remains, concluded it had “no choice” but to comply. The body was removed from its facilities in line with the court’s direction.
The remains will not be flown home immediately. ENSafrica confirms that the Government of Zambia’s attorney informed Two Mountains that SAPS would first continue its investigations, with the body transferred to a state facility for that purpose. The cooperation between the Zambian and South African authorities now underway marks a decisive turn in a dispute that has run for months.
The most revealing passage in the letter, however, is not about the body itself. It is about Two Mountains. The company, which has absorbed significant legal costs as the fight between the family, Pretoria and Lusaka played out around it, wants no further part in this matter.
ENSafrica has formally requested that any future urgent application brought by the family must not seek the return of the remains to Two Mountains. The commercial operator that gave the family’s position whatever institutional footing it still retained has now withdrawn.
That single line, tucked into a piece of legal correspondence, is the clearest signal yet of where this dispute actually stands. The court order is in force. The remains are in state custody. The appeal was never revived. And the private party that held the line for the family has asked, in writing, to be left out of whatever comes next.
