Calamos Supports Greece
GreekReporter.comGreek NewsCrimeOn This Day in 1966 Dimitri Tsafendas Killed the Architect of Apartheid

On This Day in 1966 Dimitri Tsafendas Killed the Architect of Apartheid

Dimitri Tsafendas
Dimitri Tsafendas. Public Domain

When Dimitri Tsafendas killed the architect of apartheid South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd on September 6, 1966, the courts decided it was an act of a madman.

Yet, the Greek-Mozambican knew very well that the man he stabbed to death was the architect of apartheid, and he considered it his “moral obligation” to assassinate him.

The little-known story of Tsafendas comes to light in a recently published book titled The Man Who Killed Apartheid: The Life of Dimitri Tsafendas, written by researcher Harris Dousemetzis with journalist Gerry Loughran.

Dousemetzis spent nine years researching the life of the man who, on September 6, 1966, entered South Africa‘s packed parliament building, where he worked as a courier and stabbed the Prime Minister.

PM Hendrik Verwoerd was assassinated in front of all the assembled lawmakers of South Africa, as well as a full contingent of the press.

Tsafendas was brutally tortured during his subsequent interrogation. He confessed that the Prime Minister’s assassination came about as a result of his own initiative purely for political reasons because he considered Verwoerd a racist tyrant.

The Greek-Mozambican assailant was put through a psychiatric assessment and was found to be suffering from schizophrenia. In the end, he was acquitted of the crime by reason of insanity.

Dousemetzis’ book presents evidence showing that Tsafendas was actually a militant advocate of human rights. The writer exhaustively studied police files, psychiatric records, immigration documents, and testimonies of people who had known the man.

The turbulent life of Dimitri Tsafendas

Dimitri Tsafendas was born to a Greek father of Cretan origin who worked as a marine engineer. His father married his Mozambican mother in 1918 in Lourenco Marques (now Maputo), the capital of Portuguese Mozambique.

At the age of three, Dimitri was sent to live with his grandmother and aunt in the Greek community of Alexandria, Egypt.

Young Tsafendas was extremely interested in politics at an early age. Perhaps this was due to the fact that his father was an anarchist, or perhaps it was because his Cretan ancestors had a history of heroism and rebellion against their Ottoman overlords.

In any event, Tsafendas was fascinated by the concept of communism, and Portuguese authorities were already aware of his political activism when, at the age of twenty-one, he emigrated to South Africa.

He joined the Communist Party there and was not intimidated to express his political views openly, a fact that cost him many jobs. In 1942, he embarked on a Greek freighter destined for Canada, working in the ship’s kitchen.

From Canada, he crossed over the border to the United States, subsequently working on American merchant ships before being arrested for violation of US immigration laws. Later on, he was admitted to psychiatric hospitals several different times.

Tsafendas was deported to Greece in 1947 when the Greek Civil War was raging. He joined the communist guerrillas and fought with them in the mountains around Athens and central Greece, and he later moved to the capital to work as an informant for the party.

Shortly before the Civil War ended in 1949, he moved to Portugal, where the authorities jailed him and tortured him because of his previous political activities.

In 1951, Tsafendas attempted to travel to Mozambique, but he was refused entry into the country because of his political activities.

He spent the next twelve years of his life roaming from country to country throughout Western Europe and the Middle East. He had managed to learn several languages during that time and even worked as a teacher in Istanbul.

Return to South Africa where apartheid ruled

In 1963, Tsafendas returned to Mozambique, where he was finally allowed to enter the country. From there, he illegally crossed over into South Africa.

The native black population there, along with all other people who were not white, were terribly oppressed by the strict apartheid regime.

Tsafendas was outraged at the political conditions in the country and decided to act. He got hired as a courier in the parliament with the intention of using his position to kill Verwoerd, who had enacted the most oppressive apartheid laws.

Tsafendas knew that he would most likely be killed for the murder, but his commitment was absolute.

Yet, in the most unexpected twist of events, the South African courts found him not guilty of premeditated murder on the grounds of insanity.

According to Dousemetzis’ book, the killing of the country’s Prime Minister inside parliament made the South African state look incompetent at best.

A well-known communist with a criminal record and a militant past had managed to murder the Prime Minister in front of their very eyes.

The author states that Verwoerd’s family also feared that Tsafendas would become a hero to other anti-apartheid activists, and that was why they decided to declare the killer insane in a fixed trial.

The authorities’ desire to present Tsafendas as insane is clearly exhibited by their refusal during his trial to present his twice-recorded statements that the Verwoerd assassination was a planned political act.

The South African attorney general lied and hid all possible evidence in order to portray Tsafendas as an apolitical schizophrenic who had killed Verwoerd for no political reason.

“A Question of Madness”

Tsafendas was not executed for his crime, but he spent the rest of his life in prison. He was transferred to Pretoria Central Prison in a cell on death row which was specially built for him next to the execution chamber.

Unfortunately, he continued to be tortured and inhumanely treated throughout his imprisonment. In 1989, he was transferred to Zonderwater Prison. In 1994, he was transferred yet again—this time to the Sterkfontein psychiatric hospital outside Krugersdorp.

Despite the fact that the anti-apartheid movement was quite active, especially in the 1980s, Tsafendas’ name was no more than a footnote in the history of the struggle.

In 1999, South African filmmaker Liza Key was allowed to conduct two televised interviews with Tsafendas for a documentary titled A Question of Madness.

Key raised the possibility that Tsafendas’ act had not been the haphazard deed of an insane man but actually was a political assassination.

Dousemetzis’ new book presses the issue further even showing sympathy for a man whom he describes as intelligent, altruistic, and likable.

The author presents a man who deserves to take a place among the fighters against apartheid and perhaps might have done so.

However, instead of taking the nonviolent approach of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Nelson Mandela, he assassinated a prime minister in cold blood and spent the rest of his life in anonymous ignominy.

Instead of garnering the support and respect of the entire world while unjustly incarcerated, as Mandela did, year after year of his life, Dimitri Tsafendas ended up accomplishing nothing for the cause that meant everything to him.

See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!



Related Posts