De Klerk’s Nobel prize stolen from widow’s home

A NOBEL peace prize medal awarded to FW de Klerk, the former South African president, for his part in ending apartheid has been stolen from his widow’s home.

The award is thought to have been taken by a member of household staff along with jewellery belonging to Elita de Klerk, from a safe in the Cape Town house while the late leader’s wife was travelling abroad. The suspect, who had worked for the family for seven years, had disappeared and could not be traced by police, News24 reported.

Mrs de Klerk was unable to say how much the missing possessions were worth. Nobel prizes, which consist of a gold medallion and diploma, have in the past been sold for millions of pounds.

Earlier this year, Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctioned his own Nobel prize for £90million – with the proceeds going to help Ukrainian children affected by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

James Watson, who earned a Nobel prize for medicine in 1962 for the codiscovery of the structure of DNA, reportedly sold it in 2014 for £3million.

Mr de Klerk was awarded the prize in 1993 alongside Nelson Mandela for “their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations of a new democratic South Africa”.

His widow said she had returned from travelling on April 4 and the next day noticed that the safe was open and nearly empty.

She said: “A lot of my jewellery was taken – it is difficult to put a price to it.”

The Nobel committee said it had provided the de Klerk family with a goldplated replica in July.