Thieves stole a Nobel Peace Prize medal won by South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a weekend heist at his Johannesburg home, but the gold medallion was later recovered, police said on Monday.
Johannesburg police Superintendent Thembi Nkwashu said the medal — awarded to Tutu in 1984 when he won the prize for his work against apartheid — was among a number of items stolen from his Soweto home on Sunday.
”Immediately after midnight we arrested five suspects and recovered some of the stolen goods, including, remarkably, the Nobel Peace Prize medal,” Nkwashu said.
Local media reported that the medal was worth about R1-million ($137 855).
She said other items taken included jewellery, a television set and a DVD player. Tutu, the 75-year-old former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, was overseas when the incident occurred, she said.
South Africa’s stubbornly high crime rates have not spared the country’s famous and powerful.
Nelson Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, had her Soweto home burgled in February. Nobel-prize winning author Nadine Gordimer was locked in a store room in her Johannesburg home last October while thieves robbed her of cash and jewellery. – Reuters