South Africa’s ambassador to France, formerly a long-serving cabinet minister, was found dead on Tuesday outside a Paris hotel after the window of his room in the high-rise building was forced open, prosecutors said.
Nkosinathi Emmanuel Nathi Mthethwa, 58, usually known as Nathi Mthethwa, had “reserved a room on the 22nd floor whose secured window had been forced open,” the office of the Paris prosecutor told AFP.
The body of Mthethwa, a close associate of former South African president Jacob Zuma, was found “directly by the hotel”, it added.
A source close to the case, who asked not to be named, said the ambassador suffered from depression and his death could have been suicide.
An investigation has been opened.
Mthethwa had been ambassador since December 2023.
In a statement released in Pretoria, South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said he had “no doubt that his passing is not only a national loss but is also felt within the international diplomatic community”.
The circumstances of “his untimely death” are under investigation by the French authorities, the statement confirmed.
The ambassador’s disappearance was reported on Monday by his wife, who said she “received a worrying message from him in the evening,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Mthethwa served as minister of arts and culture of South Africa from 2014 to 2019, and then of sports, arts and culture until 2023, according to his embassy website.
He was also police minister from 2009 to 2014 and security minister from 2008 to 2009.
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.