South Africa’s Ambassador to France, previously a long-serving Cabinet Minister, was found dead on Tuesday (September 30, 2025) outside a Paris hotel after the window of his room within the high-rise constructing was compelled open, prosecutors mentioned.
Nkosinathi Emmanuel Nathi Mthethwa, 58, normally generally known as Nathi Mthethwa, had “reserved a room on the 22nd floor whose secured window had been forced open”, the workplace of the Paris prosecutor instructed AFP.
The physique of Mthethwa, a detailed affiliate of former South African President Jacob Zuma, was found “directly by the hotel”, it added.
A supply near the case, who requested to not be named, mentioned the ambassador had melancholy and his dying may have been suicide.
An investigation has been opened. Mthethwa had been Ambassador since December 2023.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa referred to as his dying “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 mentioned.
The circumstances of “his untimely death” are below investigation by the French authorities, a South African ministerial assertion confirmed.
The Ambassador’s disappearance was reported on Monday (September 29, 2025) by his spouse, who mentioned she “received a worrying message from him in the evening”, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
Mthethwa served as Minister of Arts and Culture of South Africa from 2014 to 2019, after which of sports activities, arts and tradition till 2023, based on his Embassy web site.
He was additionally Police Minister from 2009 to 2014 and Security Minister from 2008 to 2009.
Mthethwa additionally served on the board of administrators of the 2010 Football World Cup native organising committee.
Between 2007 and 2022, he was a senior official within the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling occasion for the reason that first post-apartheid democratic elections in 1994.
He labored underground throughout the ANC’s navy wing throughout apartheid and was notably arrested in the course of the state of emergency in 1989.
