The commemorative gold medal awarded to the late former South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk for the Nobel Peace Prize that he shared with Nelson Mandela in 1993 was stolen from his residence in Cape Town (southwestern South Africa), his widow reported Wednesday, Elita de Klerk.
“I realized that we were robbed in April of this year. On April 5 I went to the safe and the safe was open (…) Unfortunately (…) it was almost empty, ”the woman of what was the last white president of the country told the local media News24.
Several pieces of jewelry were also removed, although their total economic value could not be determined.
“It is difficult to put a price on it because they had given me the pieces that were worn for the last fifty years for (special) occasions, and I also had pieces inherited from my mother,” said the wife of the also last president of the apartheid segregationist regime. .
According to the widow, who reported the robbery to the Police when it occurred, the main suspect is a man who had worked for his family for seven years and whom the security forces have not been able to locate so far.
The head of communications for the Norwegian Nobel Institute (which helps the Norwegian Nobel Committee select the award winners and organizes award ceremonies), Erik Aasheim, told News24 that the De Klerk family received a replica of the Nobel Prize in July. gold plated medal
According to the Committee’s website, the badge is made of 196 grams of 18-carat gold and has a diameter of 6.6 centimeters.
HISTORY
President of South Africa between 1989 and 1994, De Klerk was the leader who opened the door to the dismantling of “apartheid” in the early 1990s, in a scenario of great international pressure and after more than four decades of oppression for the “non-white” majority. ” from the country.
De Klerk, who died of cancer at the age of 85 in November 2021, received the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Mandela, who would become the country’s first black president, “for their work for a peaceful end to the apartheid regime.” and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa,” according to the award committee.
