PARIS: 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 said.

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 had depression and his death could have been suicide. An investigation has been opened.

Mthethwa had been ambassador since December 2023. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called his death “untimely” and “a moment of deep grief in which 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. The circumstances of “his untimely death” are under investigation by the French authorities, a South African ministerial 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.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2025