A quest for Mimis

An assessment of Een Mond Vol Glas, a biography of Demitrios Tsafendas by Dutch writer Henk van Woerden by Judge Wilfrid Cooper, a retired judge of the Cape High Court, who led the defence for Tsafendas in his trial for the assassination of South African Prime Minister, Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd.

In a fascinating coincidence, Van Woerden’s contemporary reconstruction of the life of Demetrios Tsafendas has appeared almost simultaneously with Furiosis, a South African documentary by Eliza Key, which covers much the same ground.

In a further curious twist, they were teenagers when Tsafendas’ dramatic assassination of Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd took place in the House of Assembly in l966. Their almost obsessive fascination with the man who was to change the face of South African history stems from that time. And some 30 years later, both were to find their way to Sterkfontein Mental Hospital where Tsafendas is currently detained and meet him face to face.

Each, through their own medium, has effectively brought him from obscurity and put him back in the public eye, bringing to the surface questions and conjectures which for many years have lain dormant.

Reading Van Woerden, I was interested that his minutely detailed account — an attempt at an anamnesis, as he decribes it — is based on the travels of Tsafendas. It stops short of the climax of Verwoerd’s life, the trial of his bloody killing of an elder statesman, referred to at the time as “the trial of the century”.

Later seeing Key’s Furiosis I was struck by the same gap. Tsafendas descibes to her in lurid detail how he did the stabbing. And she leaves it at that. In a discussion later she explained that in all their talks Tsafendas had never referred to the trial.

The answer could lie in a mental block. Deliberate? The result of his mental illness? One can only assume that in spite of his painstaking research, Van Woerden too was unable to elicit this from Tsafendas to complete his picture.

Having lived his formative years in Cape Town after his father had immigrated in l956, Van Woerden clearly had no difficulty identifying with Tsafendas, and the indignity he suffered under apartheid as the offspring of a mixed liaison. Born in Lourenco Marques on 14 January 1918 after a brief “affair” between his father, Michaelis Tsafendakis, a ship’s chandler from Candia, Crete and Amelia Williams, who had a white father and Swazi mother, Tsafendas never got to know his mother, but her blood was to be his nemesis.

Six years spent with his adoring grandmother in her home in Alexandria in his early childhood were to be his only experience of love and security. From then on “Mimis” as she affectionately called him, was, like Ulysses, destined to a life of wandering and tribulation. He moved from one institution to another in South Africa and Mozambique and was unsettled and unhappy. While this was due to a large extent to his own lack of application, he was subjected to humiliating references to his colour. The tapeworm, which was to become a mental fixation, made its appearance.

Shunned by his family, he had no roots, and although he held both Greek and Portuguese passports, he belonged nowhere. He drifted in and out of employment, and along paths that led to many places in many countries. Intrepid globetrotters might envy him his knowledge of languages — German, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, French, Italian, Shangaan and Swedish — and the extent of his travels, but certainly not the circumstances. These were an ongoing saga of poverty, arrest, admission to mental institutions and, inevitably, deportation.

Assessments of his mental condition followed the same pattern: schizophrenia, manic depressive psychosis, mixed psycho-neurosis, paranoic schizophrenia.

While refused resident status in South Africa where he was identified as a “communist” — he had joined the party when he was 18 — “ half caste and a previously illegal immigrant”, he returned in 1963 on a temporary visa after the death of his father. True to form, he moved from job to job and travelled again, this time to neighbouring Rhodesia and Mozambique. These were to be the last borders he would cross. Two years later he was once more in South Africa and at the invitation of members of the Followers of Christ. He joined this sect while in the United States several years before and remained loyal to it throughout his subsequent wanderings. He came to Cape Town suffering from a serious form of schizophrenia, as was to be revealed at his trial. He played out the most turbulent chapter of his troubled life — and entered his final imprisonment.

Van Woerden’s description of Tsafendas when he finally met him face to face in the Sterkfontein Mental Hospital is of a man who smiled often. On film Eliza Key creates a similar image — a man enjoying her company, talking easily, almost garrulously. Both pictures have a different focus to the one that faced me when I first met him on the morning of Monday, 26 September 1966, in his cell at the Caledon Square Police station.

Before me on the floor an inert shape lay sprawled on a dirty blanket. As it rose slowly, it revealed the swarthy, heavily built, unkempt figure of a middle-aged man who, on the street, would have been taken for a down-and-out hobo.

On explaining that I had been appointed by the Judge President Judge Beyers to act for him, Tsafendas, to my surprise, answered in fluent English, saying he did not believe in legal representation, that it was contrary to his religious beliefs. After I emphasised that it was in his best interest to be represented, he agreed, remarking in almost the same breath that he did not know why the Lord should have chosen an “infirm” person such as he. He uttered the word softly, and seemed to be in a daze ... a spent force.

The next time I saw him was together with Advocate Willie Burger and attorney David Bloomberg, who, at my request, had been appointed by Judge Beyers as my junior and instructing attorney respectively. Heavy, swarthy, with an unblinking stare — and looking a little neater — he was being escorted by a policeman into a room attached to Caledon Square that had been made available for consultation.

Before the trial we spent many hours with him. His intelligence was above average, as the psychiatrists, back in his life once more, would emphasise. He was courteous, yet humourless, at times to an extent that made what he said sound amusing

During our first consultation, he described how he had stabbed Dr Verwoerd twice before he was overpowered by members of Parliament who had rushed to the Prime Minister’s aid. They had, he said, beaten and kicked him before dragging him into the lobby. Tsafendas did not complain about the beating. He was philosophical. Because of what he had done, he was not surprised that he had been roughly handled, he said.

He also had no remorse. The whole episode to him was like a dream. He did not want to meet Mrs Verwoerd. He didn’t think it would be the right thing to do.

When asked how he came to stab Dr Verwoerd, he said he didn’t know exactly why, then trailed into totally unrelated rambling .... quite a few people had asked him how he got to Cape Town ... he had come from Durban in response to a letter from a member of in his church ... in Durban he had seen two jockeys falling off their horses during the running of a race. Tsafendas did not appear to be aware that he was not answering the question. His mind seemed to be on religion and he went on to talk about the biblical text he had read in the morning and had been trying to understand. He did not mention what the text was.

When he was asked when he saw the tapeworm for the first time, he recalled that when he was 15 or 16, he had started getting severe pains in his stomach. A pharmacist from whom he sought advice supplied him with a laxative that took effect almost immediately. While sitting on the toilet, he looked down into the pan and was horrified to see a monstrous tapeworm in his “faeces”. He could not, however, see the “monster’s head”. To make sure it had not remained in him he requested that the whole worm be taken to his doctor for examination, but learned, to his dismay, that his stepmother had flushed it down the water-closet.

At the request of the defence, Tsafendas was examined by a number of medical experts who included psychiatrists, a neurologist and a clinical psychologist. Like the experts — described by Van Woerden — who examined him around the world over the years, they came to the conclusion that he was suffering from schizophrenia and in terms of the Mental Disorders Act was mentally disordered.

On 17 October l966 when his case was called, the defence asked that the Mental Disorders Act be invoked and Tsafendas was not asked to plead. The State made no objection, although they joined issue with the defence that Tsafendas was suffering from schizophrenia and mentally disordered and therefore unfit to plead. Their case would be that he was indeed fit to stand trial and should be convicted of the murder of Dr Verwoerd.

The Trial of the Century had started but, in a sense, Tsafendas never went on trial. It could be argued that he had not even had a chance to plead guilty or not guilty to the charge of murder.

The trial came before Judge Beyers and two assessors. Tsafendas sat silently in the prisoner’s dock looking ahead at the judge, an awesome man with a penetrating gaze. The judge was feared and respected by many Cape Coloureds who fondly referred to him as “Big Boy” and regarded him as a confidant. He was known to be critical of apartheid.

The first defence witness was Dr Harold Cooper, a psychiatrist, who described how since puberty Tsafendas had shown schizophrenic tendencies and that dominating his mind was the strong perception that his life was ruled by a tapeworm one-and-a-half inches thick with serrated edges like a sword. It was a devil, a dragon, a snake, a demon.

This provoked Judge Beyers to ask: “Does he know he’s being tried for murder and does he know that for murder he can swing?” My counter question to this was: “Is it as barbarically simple as that?” Judge Beyers did not respond, but referred to schizophrenia derisively as “skyzophrenia”.

By the time the court adjourned for lunch the defence was facing an apparently belligerent judge. Something had to be done. At two o’clock my junior and I went to see him in Chambers. I put it to him that we felt we should tell him in Chambers before doing so in open court that he was creating an impression of being hostile to the defence. Judge Beyers responded gruffly that he did not accept that as a judge he was not permitted to enter the arena. He continued in this vein which I interrupted by politely telling him that while we understood his views, we did not agree with them.

At this point we excused ourselves and returned to court where Drs MacGregor and Zabow, a neurologist and psychiatrist respectively, were waiting to give evidence. They were aware of the hostile reception Dr Cooper had received that morning. Judge Beyers would later say that was because he had been the first over the top ... like a storm trooper. The defence witnesses needed the reassurance that they would not receive the same treatment. We could now give them that reassurance.

Dr Cooper was still in the witness box. No reference was made to our lunch-hour encounter with the Judge. The attorney general painstakingly tried to establish that Tsafendas was a hired killer who was fit to stand his trial. The Judge no longer talked about “skyzophrenia” and there were no further acerbic exchanges.

The next morning a physician testified that he would assume that in the thirties Tsafendas had a tapeworm, but that at present there was no question of him still harbouring one. But for Tsafendas himself the worm remained a disturbing reality dominating his life up to the killing of Dr Verwoerd.

Dr Ralph Kossew, the district surgeon of Cape Town, testified that he had examined Tsafendas for a disability-grant three months before the assassination and had found that he was suffering from a serious form of schizophrenia. Judge Beyers was impressed. The attorney general hardly asked a question.

Four coloured members of The Followers of Jesus Christ testified to Tsafendas’ eccentric behaviour — keeping his hat on while having a meal, spraying chickens with water to cool them down, his obsession with the worm. Before breakfast one morning, one of them who was providing him with accommodation at the time, was astonished to find Tsafendas in the kitchen preparing a huge meal of steak, eggs, onions and tomatoes and devouring it without a knife and fork, like an animal. Tsafendas explained that he had to feed the ravenous worm.

Dr Sakinofsky, a senior lecturer and acting head of the department of psychiatry of Groote Schuur Hospital, examined Tsafendas at 7pm on the day of the assassination. He told the court that he had come to the conclusion Tsafendas was not in a position to evaluate correctly the consequences of his deed, because of his schizophrenia. Judge Beyers nodded acceptance.

By this time the court had heard the details of the Tsafendas odyssey which have now been recounted by Van Woerden, and spanned the years from infancy to his appointment in August l966 as a temporary messenger in the House of Assembly. A packed public gallery listened to evidence of his pointless journeys to foreign countries and his commitment to mental hospitals.

In 1954, for instance, he had been treated in the Tropen Krankenhaus in Hamburg for a stomach complaint attributed by him to the tapeworm. One day his landlady heard him screaming repeatedly “bandwurm” in his bedroom. She became alarmed and called the “polizei”. When they arrived, Tsafendas became so violent he had to be put in a straight jacket, taken to the local lunatic asylum and confined in a padded cell. When he had calmed down the straight jacket was removed and he was placed in a ward. When he felt better he had simply walked out of the hospital.

The three medical specialists called on the second day agreed that the worm was the central theme of Tsafendas’ thoughts. If he could have one wish granted it would be to be rid of the worm.

By the fourth day it had become clear beyond question that Tsafendas was not fit to stand trial. Dr Erasmus and Professor van Wyk, the state’s medical expert witnesses, conceded that Tsafendas was a schizophrenic, mentally disordered and that he should be certified. Apart from this volte-face the state tendered no evidence.

Judge President Beyers announced: “The court has taken note of the overwhelming nature of the expert evidence and even on the evidence adduced by the State indicates unequivocally his mental condition is such that he falls within Section 28 of the Act (and) in the light of this evidence to make such order as the court deems is justified by the evidence.”

Tsafendas sat impassively in the dock as the Judge in a stentorian voice declared that as psychiatrist followed psychiatrist in the witness stand it had become clear that Tsafendas was a psychophrenic — a lunatic, a furiosis, a mentally disordered person — who could not be tried by a court of law. The final words of his judgment: “It it is my duty to order that this person, Demitrio Tsafendas, be taken from here to jail and be held there at the State President’s pleasure.”

Unlike the dramatic trial of President John Kennedy that it equalled in political importance, the trial of the century that had been set down for an indefinite period, had, to the disbelief of the many who had been baying for blood, played itself out in only four days. There are some who still today believe that justice had not been done.

Later when I visited Mimis in his cell he handed me a note: “I wish to thank you. I always think of everybody, & especially of Judge Bayers. I don’t know how to thank you all.”

While, as it happened, there was no need to test it in court, the following biblical passage could be the key to the killing. Dr Louis Herrman, a respected scholar and educationist who provided me with it, firmly believed it was these verses, Judges 3:14-23, which had been Tsafendas’ fateful inspiration:

14. So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
15. But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjaminite, a man left handed: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.
16. But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh.
17. And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon was a very fat man.
18. And when he made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bare the present.
19. But he himself turned again from the quarries that were by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee O king: who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out from him.
20. And Ehud came unto him; and he was sitting in a summer parlour, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. And he rose out of his seat.
21. And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:
22. And the haft also went in after the blade, so that the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out.
23. Then Ehud went forth through the porch, and shut the doors of the parlour.

Verwoerd, like Tsafendas, was fat. Tsafendas weighed 98 kilograms. The knife he selected at the gunsmiths for the killing was double sided.

Verwoerd was a white man, the leader of a race under whom Tsafendas, a half-caste, the child of a Greek father and a half-caste African mother, had experienced oppression. While he did not intend it nor could he have foreseen it, his assassination of Verwoerd was a formative factor in the rejection of apartheid and the beginning of an acceptance of a policy of democracy in South Africa.

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