On September 19, the police commissioner of the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province alleged at a hearing \u2013 of a judicial commission established by Ramaphosa to investigate the graft allegations \u2013 that Mthethwa interfered in a case against a former head of crime intelligence. <\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t known whether Mthethwa was scheduled to appear before the commission.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa offered his sympathies to Mthethwa\u2019s wife and extended family and said his last tenure had facilitated the deepening of relations between South Africa and France, according to a statement from the presidency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe circumstances of his untimely death are under investigation by the French authorities,\u201d South Africa\u2019s Department of International Relations and Co-operation said in a separate statement.<\/p>\n
Mthethwa was closely allied to Zuma, who led South Africa for almost nine scandal-marred years before being forced from office. <\/p>\n
Mthethwa played a key role in ensuring Zuma retained his role as deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress after he was implicated in taking bribes from arms dealers in 2005.<\/p>\n
Zuma has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
As Police Minister, Mthethwa helped oversee the 2009 closure of the Scorpions special investigations unit, which probed several senior politicians \u2013 a decision that gave effect to a resolution passed by the ANC.<\/p>\n
He was still in the post when the police gunned down dozens of miners at Lonmin Plc\u2019s Marikana platinum operation in 2012, though a judicial inquiry cleared him of any wrongdoing three years later.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On September 19, the police commissioner of the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province alleged at a hearing \u2013 of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10466,45343,1975,1558,690,2740,1874,42,6735,6722,45340,45339,43,6943,675,45342,45341,1240,40,38,41,39,540],"class_list":{"0":"post-53152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-african","9":"tag-ambassador","10":"tag-at","11":"tag-been","12":"tag-dead","13":"tag-former","14":"tag-found","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-hotel","17":"tag-minister","18":"tag-mthethwa","19":"tag-nathi","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-paris","22":"tag-police","23":"tag-pretorias","24":"tag-served","25":"tag-south","26":"tag-top-news","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topnews","29":"tag-topstories","30":"tag-where"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}