UK: Relatives Allegedly Stole Corpse, “Looted Bank Account”, And Sneaked Out Of Britain For Zimbabwe, Brother Claims In Family Dispute
24 May 2018
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By Own Correspondent| Relatives of the late Martha Chaparanganda have been accused of stealing her body, raiding her bank account and then sneaking it out of the UK for Zimbabwe.

This was at a time of dispute because the first next of kin, the brother, Elijah who was flown into the United Kingdom by a medical practitioner at St James Hospital in Leeds, wanted adequate forensic checks to be done.

The checks were on the insistence of experts who attended the body soon after hospital and sounded out that the cause of death required further investigations before the death certificate is released.

But a young man acting on instructions of the older brother who is in Zimbabwe flew into the UK a day later,  and managed to obtain the death certificate behind Elijah’s back.

” I was not even allowed to see my sister’s body, can you imagine,” Elijah told ZimEye.com.

He added that he then contacted the death Registry Department to complain on how and why the death certificate was issued without his knowledge and also at a time when the same department had said they would not issue it until after the coroner service has been engaged.

Elijah Chaparanganda then fought to block the body from being flown out of the UK. Contacts were made with the Zimbabwe Embassy in London who repeatedly confessed that there were no papers submitted for the body. They also promised that they would take heed to the notice once papers have been filed.

Soon after that, the man was interviewed by ZimEye and he narrated his ordeal in the below video.

It was at this time thought that everything was secure and the body would not be flown out of the UK.

But the very opposite happened.

It soon suddenly emerged, that the other family members managed to fly the body out of the UK. In order to evade Zimbabwe Embassy authorities they used South Africa as their destination instead of Zimbabwe.

Eventually Martha was flown to Zimbabwe and eventually buried(see picture). A disappointed Elijah now tells ZimEye, he lost the battle to obtain forensics checks on his sister’s body.

Martha Chaparanganda just before burial

He said there are three siblings left after other family members passed on (Martha was the youngest) and it was the older brother who wrestled the corpse away from him.

He however thanked ZimEye for facilitating the interview.

” What do you did still helped to set the record straight because things were not done correctly,” he said, a day before flying back to Africa.

Efforts to obtain a comment from the accused older brother who is in Zimbabwe were fruitless. But sources close to him told ZimEye, ” there was clearly a family dispute and you can see this in how Elijah was blocked from knowing simple specifics for instance the church Martha used to attend.”

– THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY-

Martha Chaparanganda, 50, suddenly passed on on the 27th March at St James Hospital in Leeds.

Just after her death, about £9,000 was allegedly looted from Martha’s bank accounts. She was a Social Worker who ran her own company.

The causes of death have been listed as the following:

  • Multi Organ Failure.
  • Sepsis  Streptococcus, Pneumoniae.
  • Asplenism.

LIVEBLAST – watch the video update below