South African ambassador to France found dead at foot of Paris hotel tower

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France is investigating the death of the ambassador, whose body was found outside the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile Hotel.

South Africa's ambassador to France, formerly a long-serving cabinet minister, was found dead on Tuesday at a Paris hotel in what is being treated as a possible suicide, the Paris prosecutor said.

The body of Nkosinathi Emmanuel Nathi Mthethwa, 58, a close associate of South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma, was found in the interior courtyard of the upscale Hyatt hotel.

The ambassador, usually known as Nathi Mthethwa, had reserved a room on the 22nd floor and its secured window had been forced open with a pair of scissors that were found at the scene.

His wife saw him a final time on Monday afternoon when he was supposed to go to a cocktail event, and then received a message in the evening "in which he apologised to her and expressed his intention to end his life", prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.

Nathi Mthethwa served as minister, with various portfolios, for many years before becoming ambassador to France in December 2023.

"Initial investigations suggest that this could have been a deliberate act, without the intervention of a third party," she said, while emphasising the investigation would seek to collect all the details.

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. 

France is investigating the death of the ambassador, whose body was found outside the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile Hotel.

The circumstances of "his untimely death" are under investigation by the French authorities, a South African ministerial statement confirmed.

African National Congress work 

Mthethwa served as South Africa's culture minister from 2014 to 2019, and then minister for 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.