By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The family of South Africa’s ambassador to France Nathi Mthethwa have called for a full investigation by French police and South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation into the circumstances leading to his death.
Mthethwa was found dead at the Hyatt hotel in Paris on Tuesday.
He had been reported missing on Monday evening, after his wife said she received a worrying message from him “in which he apologized and expressed his intention to take his own life,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
On Tuesday morning, a security guard at the Hyatt hotel discovered Mthethwa’s body in the inner courtyard, Beccuau said, adding an investigation has been opened.
Mthethwa had booked a room on the 22nd floor of the hotel, where the window’s safety mechanism had been forced open, Beccuau said. The statement said investigators found no signs of a struggle, nor traces of medication or illegal drugs.
Speaking to the media at the Mthethwa’s home in KwaMbonambi, outside Empangeni in KwaZulu-Natal, family spokesperson Khulekani Mthethwa, said the family was not buying the reports of a potential suicide, saying there were mysterious circumstances leading to the Ambassador’s death.
Khulekani said the family wanted to know where Mthethwa’s security detail was from the time he was missing until his death.
He said that Mthethwa was a brave man who ‘endured torture and all forms of brutality at the hands of the Apartheid police, therefore there was no way that he would taken his own life’.
“My brother would not have feared appearing in front of the Madlanga Commission to answer for any allegations against him. He was not a coward, as the family we dismiss any suggestion that he took his life to avoid going to the Commission. All we are calling for is a thorough investigation of the mysterious circumstances around his death, especially as had security,” said Khulekani.
He said that he had spoken to Mthethwa twice on Monday, however, he refused to divulge the details of their conversation.
Mthethwa was a high-ranking member of the African National Congress, the party that brought in democratic rule in 1994 with Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first black president.
He had been serving as South Africa’s ambassador to Paris since December 2023, and had previously been in government as police minister and also arts and culture minister.