JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A bitter feud over whether the body of Zambia’s former President Edgar Lungu should return to his country for a state funeral or stay in South Africa for burial went before a South African appeals court Friday, nearly a year after his death.
Lungu, who was Zambia’s leader from 2015 to 2021, died of an undisclosed illness in a South African hospital on June 5, 2025 at the age of 68.
He has not yet been buried because of a tug-of-war between his family and his long-time rival, current Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema.
Hichilema wants Lungu's body returned for a state ceremony, and his government won a ruling in August from the Pretoria High Court that the remains be turned over to Zambian diplomats for repatriation.
However, Lungu's family wanted to bury him in South Africa because they objected to any funeral arrangements involving his bitter rival Hichilema, and appealed the ruling before South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal.
In arguments Friday in the city of Bloemfontein, family lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi argued that the Zambian government’s claim to a state burial was unwarranted since Lungu’s presidential benefits were revoked prior to his death. He insisted that a widow’s wishes should take precedence in burial decisions.
A lawyer for the Zambian government, Ben Stoop, argued that the family and the government previously had agreed that Hichilema would attend the funeral and receive dignitaries, and that the family later violated this agreement.
The five justices who heard the appeal questioned the absence of any explicit instructions that Lungu intended to be buried in South Africa, even though it may be true that he would not have wanted his successor to conduct his funeral.
The court did not say when a ruling would be issued.
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FILE -Esther Lungu, widow of Zambia's former President Edgar Lungu, center, and family members attend a Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)
FILE - Zambian President Edgar Lungu attends the Southern African Development Community's leaders' conference in Pretoria, South Africa, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, file)
MOSCOW (AP) — Members of a Russia-led economic alliance on Friday warned member Armenia that it could face suspension over its aspirations to join the European Union as tensions continued to simmer between the Kremlin and the Armenian leadership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, who attended a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana, noted that Armenia's bid for the EU membership creates “significant risks” for their economic security. They ordered their officials to prepare a report in December on “possible consequences of suspending” Armenia's membership in the grouping.
The four leaders also urged Armenia to hold a referendum to offer voters a choice between seeking a membership in the EU or staying in the Eurasian Economic Union, a single market created in 2015 to allow the free movement of goods, capitals and labor. Armenia's Prime Ministe r Nikol Pashinyan has previously rejected the idea of holding the vote.
The warning comes just over a week before Armenia's parliamentary elections on June 7, in which Pashinyan, in power since 2018, seeks to retain his job.
Armenia, which signed a U.S.-brokered agreement last year ending decades of hostilities with Azerbaijan, has increasingly sought to forge closer ties with the U.S. and the EU. Pashinyan has declared an intention to join the EU and his government has suspended the country’s participation in a Moscow-dominated security pact, the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Armenia's westward shift has angered the Kremlin. Putin has warned Pashinyan that his country would suffer massive economic damage if it pursues its EU aspirations. In recent days, Moscow warned Armenia that it could stop supplies of cheap natural gas and banned imports of Armenian brandy, fruit and vegetables, part of the Kremlin's efforts to sway the outcome of Armenia's election.
Putin has said Armenia can't be a member of both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union. He warned Friday that Armenia could lose up to 14% of its Gross Domestic Product if it opts out of the Moscow-dominated bloc.
Pashinyan has countered Putin's warnings by arguing that for now Armenia can combine its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union with developing cooperation with the EU.
Speaking Friday, Putin also compared the current arguments with Armenia to the developments in Ukraine, whose bid to sign an association deal with the EU led to the ouster of its Moscow-friendly president, Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and Moscow's support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine that erupted the same year. In February 2022, Putin sent troops into Ukraine, staring the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a news conference after the Supreme Eurasian Economic Union summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, Friday, May 29, 2026. (Alexander Shcherbak/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
A view of the session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council summit at the Independence Palace in Astana, Kazakhstan, Friday, May 29, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Front from left: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and Kyrgyztan's President Sadyr Zhaparov attend a plenary session of the Eurasian Economic Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
