LAGOS OCTOBER 1ST (NEWSRANGERS)-South Africa’s ambassador to France has been found dead after falling from his room on the 22nd floor of his hotel.
Emmanuel Nkosinathi Mthethwa, who was reported missing on Monday, was found dead “right next to” the Hyatt Hotel at Porte Maillot in Paris on Tuesday, sources told Le Parisien.
Mr Mthethwa, 58, was reported missing by his wife, Philisiwe Buthelezi, a businesswoman, after she received a “worrying message” in the evening, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
Fearing that he had taken his own life, the police searched woods in western Paris.
An investigation has begun but initial findings suggested he fell from his hotel window, Le Figaro reported.
“He had booked a room on the 22nd floor, and the secure window was forced open,” the prosecutor’s office said.
A former minister in the South African government, Mr Mthethwa was recently named in corruption allegations around probes into political assassinations.
A source close to the case, who asked not to be named, told AFP that the ambassador had depression and his death could have been suicide.
The police also believe his phone last rang at around 3pm on Monday near the Bois de Boulogne.
The four-star hotel is located in Paris’s 17th arrondissement, just inside the périphérique, the ring road, near the Arc de Triomphe.
His death was described as a “national loss” by the South African ministry of international relations, which said it was subject to an investigation by French authorities.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, described his death as “untimely” and “a moment of deep grief in which the government and citizens stand beside the Mthethwa family”.
“Ambassador Mthethwa has served our nation in diverse capacities during a lifetime that has ended prematurely and traumatically,” he said.
Mr Mthethwa, a close ally of former South African president Jacob Zuma, became South Africa’s French ambassador in December 2023. He also served as South Africa’s permanent delegate to Unesco after a decades-long career in politics.
One of his last public appearances was for a First World War commemoration last weekend.
Mr Mthethwa rose to prominence in South African politics in the 1990s and was active in the anti-apartheid movement, culminating in him joining parliament in 2002. In 2008, he became the minister of safety and security, before moving on to the arts and culture brief.
Mthethwa also served on the board of directors of the 2010 Football World Cup local organising committee.
Between 2007 and 2022, he was a senior official in the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party since the first post-apartheid democratic elections in 1994.
He worked underground within the ANC’s military wing during apartheid and was notably arrested during the state of emergency in 1989.
Mr Mthethwa had recently been implicated in an inquiry into political and criminal interference in South Africa’s police.
The Madlanga commission has gripped the country in recent weeks after it was set up to probe allegations that criminal and political syndicates were influencing police decisions.
According to the Citizen, a South African daily, during the commission hearings, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi stated that Mr Mthethwa had attempted to influence the inspector general of intelligence, Faith Radebe, to drop the charges against Richard Mdluli, a former head of police crime intelligence.
Mr Mthethwa was one of three police ministers that has been implicated in political interference in the commission. The implicated police ministers are all from KwaZulu-Natal, where political killings have become problematic over the years, the paper reported.
Mr Mthethwa is survived by his wife and children, South Africa’s foreign ministry said.
The Telegraph
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