HARARE – A Zimbabwean man featured in a purported resurrection miracle at the Alleluia Ministries last Sunday was recognised by his work colleagues who say he has previously performed a similar stunt for pastor Alph Lukau.

Brighton Moyo had not been seen at his workplace, a timber company in Pretoria, since February 19 before he re-appeared in a dubious “miracle” which is now the subject of a police inquiry.

Vincent Amoretti, his employer, told eNCA News: “It was an absolute shock to see him in the video and to recognise him with his mouth wide open.

“We suspended him a couple of weeks ago for missing a Monday and coming late on a Tuesday. He was suspended with full pay but he never came back. We wondered what happened to him and one of his friends came into the office and brought a video saying Brighton had died. I love my employees, we have 50 guys here and to know that one of them had died I was shocked.

“When I watched the video, and saw him lying in a coffin and I saw his mouth breathing I said, ‘he’s not dead!’ Then I saw him come to life, looking all around. It was crazy. It was really a big joke.”

Amoretti said Moyo, who arrived at the Sandton-based church in a coffin, was known to attend the church, together with his aunt and sister.

“From what I hear from my staff, he was trying to get people to come and do the act with him. I believe he has done a stunt in a wheelchair where he got up and he walked away. He tried to solicit the people who work for me to come and do the shows with him, it’s an ongoing thing,” Amoretti added.

The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) on Tuesday said it would be investigating.

“As a commission, we need to get to the root of this. Unless we do that, South Africans are taken for a ride and their intelligence is insulted,” said the commission’s deputy chair David Mosoma.

Police have also launched a separate probe after three funeral parlours reported Lukau’s church for fraudulent behaviour, and the theft of a phone belonging to the driver of a hearse that conveyed Moyo to the church.

Individuals believed to be agents of Lukau bought a coffin for R5,500 from Kingdom Blue funeral directors on February 24, claiming it was for one Proud Malumnjwa who had suddenly died in the rural areas. They then fraudulently put stickers of another funeral parlour, Black Phoenix, on a Toyota Quantum people carrier and drove to Kings and Queens where they hired a hearse only after misrepresenting to be from Black Phoenix. There, the name of the dead man was written down as Proud Sibanda.

By the time Moyo rose from the dead, his name had changed to Elliot.

The purported resurrection has been met with widespread ridicule.

The Zimbabwe embassy in Pretoria said if indeed Moyo had died on Friday, February 22, and his body was being taken home to Zimbabwe when his relatives made the detour to Lukau’s church, relatives would have required to have several documents which are not issued during the weekend.

Zimbabwe’s Consul General to South Africa Batiraishe Mukonoweshuro said: “When someone dies in South Africa, the funeral parlour handling the body needs a death certificate from the department of Home Affairs in South Africa, an embalmment certificate and a post mortem report from the doctor who attended the deceased person.

“All these requirements are processed during weekdays and since this man is said to have died this past Friday, I wonder how they managed to get all that documentation in a space of hours that is if he died at all.

“For them to come to the consulate to get a repatriation letter, they first have to deal with the South African government for the requirements I just listed. After they get a letter from us, they go back to the South African Ministry of Health for the export permit and this is a department that also does not operate on weekends.”

Lukau’s church has since admitted that Moyo was alive when he arrived – which makes the spectacle that followed all the more bizarre.

In his own words, Lukau claimed “Elliot” had been in a mortuary since his death on February 22 before he was brought to his church on February 24.

The 29-year-old allegedly died while being seen by a private doctor, who has not been named. No details of the mortuary where his body was allegedly stored have been released.