Questions Unanswered

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31162, 12 September 1966, Page 13

Questions Unanswered

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 10. A numbe” of vital questions are still unanswered about one of the world’s most public crimes—the assassination on Tuesday of the South African Prime Minister, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd. A police investigation has continued round the clock into the background here and abroad of the man now in custody, Dimitri Tsafendas, the temporary Parliamentary messenger who knifed Dr. Verwoerd. But no clear picture of man or motive has yet emerged. Tsafendas, originally described as of Greek origin,

has been identified as being Portuguese, as being Greek. Turkish, and as once having carried five passports. His age has been given as 41, 45, and 48. He was reported at various times to have visited West Germany, Greece, Portugal, the United States, Canada, Ghana, Turkey, and Angola, and to have been shipwrecked off Madagascar. Tsafendas is said to have been educated in one or other of South Africa, Mosambique, Portugal, Egypt, and West Germany. His mother has been identified as a Mulatto woman from Mozambique in some reports, with Tsafendas being illegitimate. He has been described as “mentally deranged but harmless” and as a mysterious figure, who travelled round southern Africa with a suitcase full of money. Official View Official statements have said evidence so far shows the killing to be the work of one man only, but some highly-placed South Africans are insisting privately that Tsafendas was a trained assassin working for unspecified people overseas. Many of these questions are unlikely to be answered before Tsafendas appears in court—scheduled for October 6, though the hearing may be before then. The Johannesburg “Sunday Times” claimed today that Tsafendas had walked into the newspaper’s Cape Town office last May and said he was suing the United States

Government for 100,000 dollars. The newspaper tonight printed what it said was a sworn affidavit Tsafendas had made at the time. In the affidavit Tsafendas said that, after being discharged from the United States Merchant Marine in 1946 he was deported to Greece when he had asked to be returned to South Africa. He claimed the money for loss of salary, mental and physical suffering and inconvenience. Not Connected The “Sunday Times” said its Cape Town office had not connected Tsafendas with the assassination until his photograph was published last Thursday. The newspaper then told the South African security police and the United States consulate in Cape Town. In the affidavit Tsafendas said he was born in Lourenco Marques, Mozambique, on June 14, 1918, and went to Johannesburg in 1936, remaining there until 1941 when he joined the merchant marine jn Cape Town. He claimed he was wrongfully detained in United States mental hospitals. In Washington the United States Immigration and Naturalisation Service said today it had forwarded information to South Africa about a “Dimitrios Tsafandakis," a man presumed to be the same person as Dr. Verwoerd’s assassin. Seven Times The Government service said Tsafandakis was in the United States on seven occasions as a merchant seaman from 1942 to 1947 and was treated in mental hospitals. He was deported on mental grounds in 1944. and again later as a merchant seaman in September, 1947. The United States Immigration Service said that Tsafandakis—while in Ame-rica-spelled his name as Tsafendas, the name by which the assassin is best known. United States immigration records show that Tsafendakis was born on January 14, 1918, in Lourenco Marques, Mozambique.