South Africa’s ambassador to France has been found dead outside a high-rise hotel in Paris.<\/p>\n
Nkosinathi Emmanuel “Nathi” Mthethwa, 58, had been reported missing by his wife on Monday evening after she got a text message from him that concerned her, the prosecutor’s office in the French capital said.<\/p>\n
It added that the ambassador’s body was discovered at the foot to the Hyatt Regency hotel in the west of the city.<\/p>\n
Mr Mthethwa had booked a room on the 22nd floor, the prosecutor’s office said, adding that a secured window had been
forced open.<\/p>\n
French media, including newspaper Le Parisien, said Mr Mthethwa was believed to have killed himself, without citing a source.<\/p>\n
His death was called a “national loss” by South Africa’s foreign affairs department, which said the circumstances were under investigation by French authorities.<\/p>\n
The department also said in a statement: “Ambassador Mthethwa was a distinguished servant of the nation, whose career was marked by dedicated service in critical ministerial portfolios.”<\/p>\n
He was South Africa’s minister of arts and culture from 2014 to 2019, adding sports to his portfolio from 2019 to 2023.<\/p>\n
Mr Mthethwa was originally posted to the French embassy in February 2024 and was also South Africa’s permanent delegate to UNESCO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa’s ambassador to France has been found dead outside a high-rise hotel in Paris. Nkosinathi Emmanuel “Nathi”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-170529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}