The woman whose badly decomposed body was found on a riverbank in Co Kilkenny last Friday was the daughter of the Malawian chief justice, Mr Leonard Unyolo. Conor Lally and Ralph Tenthani in Malawi.
Mr Unyolo, who was appointed chief justice last year, has already travelled to Ireland and was last night due to contact gardaí investigating the murder of his daughter.
Other members of the family have also arrived in Ireland and are due to attend a committal service tonight in Waterford city for Ms Paiche Onyemaechi (25), who had two children.
Gardaí have been told by people who knew Ms Onyemaechi that she had worked as a lap-dancer in Limerick and Dublin.
She came to Ireland as an asylum-seeker and is understood to have been living here, most recently in Waterford, for around four years.
She left Malawi in the late 1990s and went to London to pursue a course in business administration.
While there she met her Nigerian-born husband. She later dropped out of college and moved to Ireland.
Garda sources last night confirmed she was the daughter of the Malawian chief justice. She was one of four daughters.
Malawi's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr George Chaponda, was also quoted in newspaper reports confirming the dead woman was Mr Unyolo's daughter.
"Our officers from our mission in the UK have gone there [to Ireland\] to investigate what really happened," Mr Chaponda told the Nation newspaper in Malawi .
Gardaí began a murder investigation when Ms Onyemaechi's badly decomposed body was found on the bank of the River Pil, Piltown, Co Kilkenny, last Friday.
It was wrapped in black plastic bags and had been there for a number of weeks.
Gardaí have confirmed the dead woman died a very violent death. Her head was detached from her body and there were a number of other marks on her body.
The investigation has now been switched to Waterford city.
Extensive house-to-house inquiries have been conducted at Herblain Park, where she lived with her husband and two young sons.
Gardaí have also interviewed a large number of her friends and associates and have carried out a technical examination on at least one house in the city.
Supt Mick Devine, who is heading the investigation, said he was satisfied with the level of co-operation from the public so far.
"We're still exploring a number of avenues of inquiry," he said. "We've interviewed a lot of people but it is still fairly early stages in the investigation. We have a lot of work still to do."