CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The ex-wife of South Africa's last apartheid president was stabbed and strangled in her luxury beachfront flat, police said Wednesday.
Marike de Klerk was the latest and one of the most prominent victims of the country's rampant crime.
Former President F.W. de Klerk, who divorced his wife of 39 years in 1998, left a Nobel celebration in Stockholm to be with his children.
"I have learned with great shock and sorrow of the circumstances of the tragic death of my former wife, Marike," he said in a statement.
"I have been informed that the South African Police Service is conducting a murder inquiry and hope that they bring the person or persons involved to justice as soon as possible."
Police Superintendent Wicus Holtzhausen said Marike de Klerk was stabbed in the back but her death was caused by strangulation.
He said there was no indication of a break-in at her second-floor apartment in the high-security Dolphin Beach complex north of Cape Town and little sign of struggle.
"There were marks on her elbows, but we don't know if that indicates a struggle or whether it happened when she hit the floor," he said.
Holtzhausen said police had returned to her apartment on Wednesday to search for clues, but he added, "At this stage we have no suspects at all."
Police found Marike de Klerk's body Tuesday after she had missed an appointment with her hairdresser.
Police sources said she was found dressed in pajamas and probably had been killed Monday morning, more than 24 hours before she was found.
De Klerk, who led South Africa from white apartheid rule to democracy between 1989 and 1994, now lives partly in London and partly on a wine farm owned by his second wife, Elita Georgiadis, in the Franschoek Valley north of Cape Town.
Marike had opposed the separation from her husband and appealed repeatedly in radio and TV programs for him to return to her. Friends said she was deeply depressed.
South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, with about 21,000 murders last year alone. Victims have included prominent businessmen, sports stars, doctors and lawyers.
Long-distance runner Matthews "Loop-en-Val" Motshwarateu, a national champion and world record holder, died last month, after being shot in a hijacking outside his Johannesburg home.
Security analyst Peter Gastrow said murder levels had been coming down steadily since the end of white rule in 1994, but remained unacceptably high.
"The violence in our society is still at outrageous levels. Whether you're in a rural area or in a city, special security measures are essential if you want to survive," he said.
Gastrow said the high crime rate was partly a legacy of the 1980s war over apartheid. He said poverty and urbanization were also factors fueling some the world's worst rates of murder, violent attack and rape.
De Klerk, who shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela who became president after him, was expected home on Thursday, an aide said.
"Marike's death has come as a great blow to our family," De Klerk said in his statement from Stockholm. "Marike was a wonderful mother and served South Africa with great distinction and dedication."
De Klerk said he had been in constant touch with their children, sons, Jan and Willem, and daughter, Susan, since Marike's body was discovered.
Marike de Klerk strongly opposed her son Willem's short engagement to a mixed-race fellow student, Erika Adams, and was once reported by the leftist Vrye Weeklblad newspaper to have described the country's "colored," or mixed-race, minority as the "leftovers of creation."