A preliminary probe by the French authorities into the death of ambassador Nathi Mthethwa in Paris has revealed no-one other than him went into his room either before or after he checked in.
This is what South African police told the Mthethwa family this week, as questions continue to surround the circumstances of his death. An initial investigation pointed to suicide.
The briefing to the family came as the SAPS, in an unprecedented move, announced on Friday it would send five investigators to France to help with the probe into his death.
Mthethwa’s body was found on Tuesday morning on the street outside the Hyatt Hotel in Paris, just hours after he sent messages to his wife, Philisiwe Buthelezi, telling her he would take his own life.
In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, Mthethwa’s brother-in-law, Sfiso Buthelezi, said the family would await the autopsy report, expected tomorrow, before accepting the possibility he may have committed suicide.
French authorities have informed Pretoria they will not release his body for repatriation until they have ascertained the cause of death.
Buthelezi said police had told the family Mthethwa made the booking with the hotel on September 15 for a two-day stay on September 28 and 29. But he later amended his booking, moving it to September 29 and 30.
CCTV footage analysed by the police shows he checked in on September 29.
“Another thing they told us is that they’ve been to the hotel and looked at the cameras; they wanted to check whether somebody might have gone into that room either before or after the ambassador. So if it was before, someone might have been waiting to do something bad to him, or after,” said Buthelezi.
“So they say, again, for a fact, they’ve looked at the cameras; there’s nothing. There’s nobody who went in there before or after. So that’s the other thing that they [police] say; then he was discovered the following day. Yes, he checked in; they see him going in. He checked in. He went into that room; they can see him, yes.”
Buthelezi said the family was still not at the point of accepting Mthethwa committed suicide, and they were still waiting for the autopsy result as well as information from the five-member SAPS team, all of which will help resolve the “mystery” surrounding his death.
“No, we are far from getting comfort. We are far from that. I’m just giving you the facts that they’ve given us, and they stressed the investigation is ongoing,” he said.
He did send that message to his wife; that’s a fact. But it still doesn’t confirm that it’s a suicide. You know people can take you, force you to open bank accounts and do everything, and it looks like it comes from you. It may be coming from you, but I’m just saying that that doesn’t confirm that it is
— Sfiso Buthelezi, brother-in-law
Buthelezi has however called it a “fact” that Mthethwa sent Philisiwe text messages that suggested he wanted to take his own life. She received the messages late on Monday; he was still not home by 11pm and she started calling around to find him, and told the French police.
“Well, it’s a fact that he did send that message to his wife; that’s a fact. But it still doesn’t confirm that it’s a suicide. You know people can take you, force you to open bank accounts and do everything, and it looks like it comes from you. It may be coming from you, but I’m just saying that that doesn’t confirm that it is. We’re just stating a fact that that’s one of the things which also happened,” said Buthelezi.
“So it is a fact; there is a message which came from Nyambose’s [Mthethwa’s] phone. I may not say it necessarily came from him, but it came from his phone, and it went to his wife. That’s a fact.”
This, according to highly placed government officials, is the first time an ambassador has died in the host country.
“In this case, you’ve got all sorts of convoluted circumstances,” one official said, discussing the decision to send detectives to Paris. “So considering that Mthethwa was a sitting ambassador, there has to be some action from your home country that shows the level of care. You can’t just leave it to others.”
This government official said sending South African officers was unlikely to cause any diplomatic tension with the French authorities.
“But also, imagine it the other way; let’s say it was their ambassador dying in our country. Do you think they will just rely on us and will not want to send their own people to work with our people?”
Family and villagers recall Mthethwa’s humble roots
Meanwhile, mourners, media and politicians are flocking to Mthethwa’s hometown of KwaMnqadi, a modest village about 90km from Richards Bay on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast.
On Friday the Sunday Times team found the Mthethwa elders locked in an impromptu meeting, finalising plans to travel to France to retrieve the body.
Musawokuphila Mthethwa, an uncle of the former police minister, said news of his death had caught the family by surprise. “We are in the final stages of our preparation to go to France to bring his body and spirit home,” he said, adding that they were liaising closely with Philisiwe and her family.
The elders plan to take a fig tree — symbolic in local custom as a vessel for both body and spirit — with them to France. Mthethwa will be buried beside his father.
Family members recalled the young Nathi Mthethwa with fondness and laughter.
“He loved football so much that sometimes, when he was herding cattle, he ducked and went to play football with his friends,” said his cousin, Mbhekiseni. “It was my duty to discipline and straighten him up with the stick, as he’d leave cattle to eat neighbours’ crops.”
Mthethwa left KwaMnqadi in the early 1980s to live with his parents and siblings in a cramped matchbox house in Klaarwater township. It was there, amid the harsh conditions and the relentless suppression of the apartheid regime, that his political activism was ignited.
“I often felt sorry for him,” Mbhekiseni added. “He had a big book he read at night, even lighting a candle to do so. He told me he was reading about politics and stuff like that.”
Other villagers shared memories of a quiet and respectful boy who never let fame cloud his humility.
Mashezi Mthethwa, 69, recalled seeing him often when she first married into the village. “He is the most famous person to have come from this area,” she said. “But even as famous as he was, it didn’t go to his head. He would greet us and treat us with respect.”
Phiwe Mhlongo, ANC regional co-ordinator in the Musa Dladla region — who has been liaising between regional, provincial and national ANC structures — spoke of the loss with deep emotion.
“Whenever he was home, he would call and say he is at home and would be available for any deployment,” Mhlongo said.
“We will miss him for this and many other things he has done for our organisation. His humility and activism were unmatched.”
Yet Mthethwa’s legacy is not without controversy. It was at his KwaMnqadi homestead that a perimeter wall was built — later revealed to have been funded through Crime Intelligence’s secret service account, allegedly on the instruction of the then head of the division, Richard Mdluli.
The wall, along with other expenditures, became part of a broader scandal involving the misuse of police funds.
During testimony at the Madlanga commission, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi described Mthethwa’s interference in the Mdluli investigation — he was police minister at the time — as “the worst I’ve ever experienced”, saying it was the first time he had seen political interference by the executive in police operations.
As KwaMnqadi prepares to receive the body of its famous son, the village stands at a crossroads of memory and reckoning — honouring a man whose journey from herding cattle to shaping national policy left an indelible mark, both celebrated and contested.
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