This Day in History: June 30, 1994
Additional Date: June 30, 1994
On 30 June 1994, the Minister of Correctional Services in South Africa, Dr Sipho Mzimela, announced that Dimitri Tsafendas, the parliamentary messenger who assassinated Hendrik Verwoerd on 6 September 1966 was to be moved from Pretoria Central Prison to a mental institution. Tsafendas. Prior to assassinating Verwoerd, Tsafendas was institutionalised in other Germany, England and the United States of America and twice escaped from mental institutions before settling in South Africa.
At his trial, he blamed his actions on a tapeworm in his stomach. This led to him being declared mentally unfit to stand trial and he was sentenced to spend his life in a mental institution. The apartheid government exploited a loophole in the law, by constantly challenging the ruling of the Courts and held him on death row for nearly 25 years.
On 30 June 1994, the African National Congress Government, moved Tsafendas to the Sterkfontein Mental Asylum, where he remained until his death in October 1999.