PARIS, France – South Africa’s ambassador to France, Nkosinathi Emmanuel Mthethwa, has been found dead in Paris after falling from a hotel in the city’s 17th arrondissement, French authorities confirmed on Tuesday.
The 58-year-old diplomat, who had been missing since Monday, was discovered outside the Hyatt hotel at Porte Maillot. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, Mthethwa is believed to have fallen from the 22nd floor of the four-star establishment.
An investigation has been opened and assigned to the Brigade for the Repression of Personal Crime (BRDP), a branch of the Paris judicial police. A duty magistrate has also been dispatched to the scene. The South African embassy in Paris could not be reached for comment on Tuesday morning.
Mthethwa’s disappearance had been reported by his wife, who told police she had received a “disturbing message” from him on Monday evening. His phone was last traced that afternoon near the Bois de Boulogne, a large park in western Paris. Police, fearing a possible suicide, had deployed search teams with sniffer dogs in the area.
Mthethwa had been serving as South Africa’s ambassador to France since February 2024 and was also the country’s permanent delegate to UNESCO.
A veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, he began his political career in the trade union movement and rose to prominence in 1994 as secretary for organisation of the ANC Youth League, a position he held until 2001. He entered South Africa’s National Assembly the following year, later chairing the parliamentary portfolio committee on minerals and energy between 2004 and 2008.
In September 2008, Mthethwa was appointed minister of safety and security in President Kgalema Motlanthe’s cabinet. He retained the post under Jacob Zuma, when it was renamed the Ministry of Police, before being moved to the arts and culture portfolio after Zuma’s re-election.
Recently, the Madlanga Commission investigating claims of political interference in the South Africa police service and judicial corruption heard from General Nhlanhla Mkhwananzi, the KwaZulu Natal police chief, who said he was ordered by Mthethwa – when he was police minister – to abandon an investigation into Richard Mdluli, the ex-national police crime intelligence head.
“If you talk about political interference, that was the worst that I ever experienced,” Mkhwananzi told the commission about the 2011 case.
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