DON’T POINT AT ME, I ALSO DON’T KNOW HOW LUNGU DIED – KABESHA

DON’T POINT AT ME, I ALSO DON’T KNOW HOW LUNGU DIED – KABESHA

ATTORNEY General Mulilo Kabesha says he should not be blamed for calls to release former president Edgar Lungu’s body for a post-mortem, stressing that he does not know how the late president died.

Kabesha says Zambians should not forget who made the initial poisoning allegations after Lungu’s death.

Appearing on South Africa’s Newzroom Afrika on June 18, 2025, PF faction Secretary General Raphael Nakacinda said the Lungu family’s request for a post-mortem by independent specialists was aimed at addressing their concerns over the cause of his death.

“I think that looking at the fact that among the procedures the family are insisting should take place is basically to establish the cause of death through post-mortem or indeed any of such procedures by independent specialists. Basically, it speaks to the fact that there could be concerns that have been raised by the family and as for us as Patriotic Front and Tonse Alliance, we stand with the family on that because I think good closure requires that all questions the family may have need answers,” said Nakacinda.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, the South African Police Service (SAPS) subpoenaed Two Mountains Burial Services, where Lungu’s mortal remains are believed to be held, demanding that they release his body for a post-mortem to determine whether he died of poisoning as alleged.

Reacting to this, Lusaka lawyer Makebi Zulu accused government of hiring a private investigator in an attempt to conduct a post-mortem on Lungu.

However, in an interview, Wednesday, Kabesha said he had nothing to do with criminal investigations into Lungu’s death.

“You know me, it’s not good to point at me. I have a case before the court, a civil matter. I went to court to say that the remains of president Lungu should be brought and be buried here. The High Court in Pretoria gave me judgement, the Lungu family appealed and where we are now, we are waiting for their grounds of appeal. Their leave to appeal was granted and they filed a notice of appeal, we are waiting for grounds of appeal, what are the reasons? If people have complained or if there are criminal matters going on, that’s not my role. For me, my role is civil matters. In criminal matters I have no say. But what I’m seeing also in the media is that there appears to be some criminal investigations or allegations of the former president having been poisoned, but that’s not for the Attorney General. It’s the police there and police in South Africa, not even police in Zambia, don’t trouble the police in Zambia,” Kabesha said.

“And also, Zambians should stop being forgetful. What is it that the Zambians heard when president Lungu had just died? Some person screamed poisoning, so why do Zambians want to forget about those allegations of poisoning? Why should you now pretend that you don’t want a person who screamed poisoning to substantiate? Is that the reason why we are delaying the burial because we know more? We don’t know, as government we don’t know, but those who screamed poisoning, in all fairness to the Zambians, should justify if they were just emotional, they should say, ‘no, I was just emotional’. So, don’t trouble the Attorney General, the Attorney General has nothing to do with [that]. Am I the one who screamed poisoning? Have you ever seen the Attorney General say there was no poisoning? How do I know? I don’t even know how Lungu died, all I know is that he died, and we were saying if at all he died, please let’s give him an honourable burial here in Zambia. As to how he died, I don’t know”.

He noted that while Zulu had agreed to negotiate quietly with government, he had continued to issue statements to the media.

“Please, Zambians should not misdirect their attention to me. Why should some Zambians now start attacking me? So, in short, I have nothing to do with whether there are investigations, I don’t know. And the investigators have not even requested me for any information or statement. And also, if it’s to do with what the spokesperson for the family [said], what I’m told was that as they negotiate, the Secretary to the Cabinet is the leader of that negotiating team. As they negotiate, they had agreed with that Makebi [Zulu] that, ‘please let’s avoid going to the media’, but Makebi is busy going to the media, what’s wrong with that? What is going on? He is the one who talks about not trusting the government, but they agreed that, ‘please let’s negotiate quietly, we go to the media when we have reached an agreement’,” said Kabesha.

“But from the other side, we are seeing [people] rushing to the media, the other side are respecting the promise. So, ask also the Secretary to the Cabinet if that’s what they agreed that Makebi should be the spokesperson to go and talk to the media”.

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