At the same time, the Portuguese security police, embarrassed that Tsafendas, a Portuguese citizen with a long history of political activism in Mozambique who had also fooled them into granting him amnesty by pretending he was no longer a communist and or an anticolonialist, had assassinated Verwoerd, moved quickly to hide their discomfort. Two days after the assassination, the Chief Inspector of PIDE in Lisbon instructed his counterparts in Mozambique not to give the South African authorities "any information indicating Tsafendas as a partisan for the independence of your province ". The PIDE in Mozambique thus lied and misled the South African police as to Tsafendas's past political activities.