“An official announcement will be made today but the late president will be flown by a South African military plane,” the official said Monday.
After suffering a heart attack on Thursday, Mutharika was flown to South Africa and was pronounced dead on arrival at a military hospital there the same day, a presidential secretary said.
The date for his funeral has not yet been made public, but he is expected to be buried near his home village at a his sprawling Ndata farm in the southern Thyolo district.
Mutharika’s first wife Ethel, who died three years ago, is also buried at the farm.