Dimitri Tsafendas
| Dimitri Tsafendas | |
|---|---|
| Born |
14 January 1918 Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique |
| Died | 7 October 1999 (aged 81) Krugersdorp, Gauteng, South Africa |
| Cause of death |
|
| Known for | Assassination of South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd |
| Criminal charge | Murder |
| Criminal penalty | Detained "at the pleasure of the State President" |
| Criminal status | Not guilty by reason of insanity |
Dimitri Tsafendas (Greek: Δημήτρης Τσαφέντας; 14 January 1918 – 7 October 1999) is known as the murderer of Prime Minister of South Africa Hendrik Verwoerd, the "Architect of Apartheid" on 6 September 1966. Tsafendas, working as a parliamentary messenger, stabbed Verwoerd with a dagger during a parliamentary session.
Tsafendas was born in Lourenço Marques (today's Maputo) to Michaelis Tsafendas (also spelled Miguel Tsafandakis), a Greek seaman, and Amelia Williams, a Mozambican of mixed race. He was sent to Egypt after his first year to live with his grandmother. He returned to Mozambique five years later; then, at the age of ten, moved to Transvaal, where he attended Middleburg Primary School from 1928–1930. He then returned to Mozambique and attended a church school for the next two years.
From age 16, Tsafendas worked at various jobs. He joined the South African Communist Party in the 1930s. He became a seaman in the merchant marine in 1941. He served aboard a US convoy ship after the outbreak of the Second World War, and spent the next 20 years travelling. He began to experience psychotic episodes that resulted in short periods of institutionalisation in various countries, including a 6-month detention on Ellis Island where he was diagnosed as schizophrenic.
During his wanderings, he picked up 8 languages, and upon his return to South Africa, he worked for a time as a translator. Tsafendas was shunned in white circles in South Africa because of his dark skin, though under the apartheid system's racial laws he was classified as white. However, because of his dark appearance, he faced taunts and ostracism from white South African society throughout his life.
He had become a baptised member of the Two by Twos sect while visiting Greece, and associated with its members after returning to South Africa on a temporary visa. Shortly before the assassination, Tsafendas applied for reclassification from "white" to "coloured" so that he could legally live with his mixed-race girlfriend, but his application was turned down.
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