Dimitri Tsafendas
Dimitri Tsafendas (14 January 1918 – 7 October 1999) was a Greek-Mozambican communist who murdered the Prime Minister of South Africa Hendrik Verwoerd on 6 September 1966. At the time of his death in prison, he was not regarded as a hero in anti-apartheid circles, which sent no members to attend his funeral. He was buried in an unmarked grave. Fewer than ten people attended the service. However, more recently, possibly reflecting increasing anti-White and pro-violence views in South Africa and elsewhere, there have been increasing attempts to make him a hero and to glorfy him. such in reports, books, and theatre plays.
Life
Tsafendas born in Maputo, Mozambique to black women, his father a Greek. Tsafendas worked as a merchant seaman for a number of years. In 1964, he came to South Africa as an illegal immigrant and secured a post as a messenger in parliament.
Assassination of Verwoerd
Tsafendas used his position to assassinate South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd on 6 September 1966. Tsafendas stabbed Verwoerd with a dagger during a parliamentary session. A short time before the assassination, he had applied for reclassification as coloured. Tsafendas had been a member of the Communist Party.
It has been claimed that the murder was a not political act. The trial of Tsafendas dealt mainly with the question of whether he was capable of fully understanding the consequences of his actions, and possible motives were never discussed. The attorney general alleged that Tsafendas was a "hired killer", but this was not accepted by Judge Beyers, who found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and ordered Tsafendas to be imprisoned indefinitely. Tsafendas claimed that he had a giant tapeworm inside him, which spoke to him and told him to kill the Prime Minister. The court ordered that he be detained "at the pleasure of the State President", which meant that only the South African State President had the authority to release him. He was never released.
Alexander Moumbaris states Tsafendas was revolutionary communist and took great pride in the murder of Verwoerd. And has said Tsafendas pretended to be insane to save his life. He states Tsafendas smiled with pride when talking about the assassination and said "I got their tough guy."
Books
Tsafendas' life is described in the book A Mouthful of Glass by Henk van Woerden (ISBN 1-86207-442-9). A play written by Anthony Sher and directed by Nancy Meckler, with Sher in the role of Tsafendas, ran at the Almeida Theatre in London in 2003.
