Family rejects suicide reports for Mthethwa

Calls for thorough investigation into circumstances surrounding ambassador's death

- THAMI MAGUBANE AND WILLEM PHUNGULA

THE FAMILY of the South African Ambassador to France, Nathi Mthethwa, who died after falling from the 22nd floor of a Paris hotel on Tuesday, has rejected claims suggesting that he committed suicide.

The family said that Mthethwa, 58, had endured torture at the hands of the apartheid police machinery and would never take his own life to avoid accountability for his alleged interference in the work of the police as revealed in the Madlanga Commission of Inguy,

They have called for a full investigation by French police and South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation into the circumstances leading to his death.

Speaking to the media at the Mthethwa home in KwaMbonambi, outside Empangeni in KwaZulu-Natal, his relative Khulekani Mthethwa said the family was not buying the reports of a potential suicide, saying there were mysterious circumstances leading to the ambassador's death.

Khulekani said the family wanted to know where Mthethwa’ security detail was from the time he was missing until his death. He said that Mthethwa was a brave man who “endured torture and all forms of brutality at the hands of the apartheid police; therefore, there was no way that he would have taken his own life”.