List of assassins

The following is a list of assassins with short comments on the assassination(s), or attempted assassination(s), which made them famous. It also contains some individuals who were famously suspected (but later acquitted) of particular assassinations.

A

 * Mario Aburto - supposed assassin of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio (1994)
 * Saad Akbar - assassin of Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan (1951)
 * Yigal Amir - assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1995)
 * Benjamín Mendoza y Amor Flores, a Bolivian Surrealist painter, would-be assassin of Pope Paul VI during the latter's visit to the Manila International Airport in the Philippines (1970)
 * An Jung-geun, assassin of Itō Hirobumi, resident-general of Korea and Prime Minister of Japan (1909)
 * Jacob Johan Anckarström - assassin of King Gustav III of Sweden (1792)
 * Michele Angiolillo - assassin of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain (1897)
 * Avelino Arredondo - assassin of Juan Idiarte Borda, President of Uruguay (August 25, 1897)
 * Ay - minister and thought to have been the assassin of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, who is now believed to have died from a compound fracture.

B

 * Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry - would-be assassin of President of France Charles de Gaulle (1962)
 * Byron De La Beckwith - convicted assassin of US civil rights figure Medgar Evers (1963)
 * John Bellingham - assassin of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (May 11, 1812)
 * John Wilkes Booth - accused as assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. Booth was killed before he could be brought to trial. Arrested, charged and tried by a military tribunal as conspirators were Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt. According to the conspiracy, Payne was to assassinate U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward (unsuccessful), Atzerodt was to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson (did not try) and David Herold was to kill General Ulysses S. Grant (did not try); (all 1865). All were convicted and died on the gallows.
 * Gustave Bouvet - attempted assassin of President of France Alexandre Millerand (1922)
 * Mohammed Bouyeri - assassin of the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh (November 2, 2004)
 * Arthur Herman Bremer - would-be assassin of George Wallace, Presidental candidate and governor of Alabama (1972)Wallace was wounded and made a paraplegic in the attack.
 * Gaetano Bresci - assassin of Italian King Humbert I
 * Maxime Brunerie - would-be assassin of Jacques Chirac, President of France
 * Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and their associates - assassins of Julius Caesar (44BC)
 * Frederick Russell Burnham - assassin of Mlimo, the Ndebele religious leader who planned and led the Second Matabele War (1896)
 * Samuel Byck - would-be assassin of American President Richard Nixon (1974)

C

 * Carlos the Jackal - would-be assassin of Joseph Sieff
 * Sante Geronimo Caserio - assassin of the French President Marie François Sadi Carnot (1894)
 * Cassius Chaerea and associates - assassins of the Roman emperor Caligula
 * Mark David Chapman - assassin of Activist & ex-Beatle John Lennon (1980)
 * Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola - would-be assassins of American President Harry S Truman (1950)
 * Charlotte Corday - assassin of Jean-Paul Marat (1793)
 * Izola Curry - stabbed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1958)
 * Leon Czolgosz - convicted assassin of the American President William McKinley (1901)

D

 * Namba Daisuke attempted assassin of Prince Regent Hirohito of Japan (December 27, 1923)
 * André Dallaire, attempted assassin of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (November 5, 1995)
 * Robert Damiens, attempted assassin of Louis XV of France (1757)
 * Dingaan and Mhlangana - assassins of Shaka, the king of Zulus (circa 1828)
 * Reginald Dunne and Joseph O'Sullivan - IRA assassins of Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, British field marshal (1922)
 * Fritz Joubert Duquesne - a Boer and German Spy who killed Lord Kitchener, British Field Marshal and Secretary of State for War, by sinking the HMS Hampshire while on route to Russia (June 5, 1916)
 * Francisco Martin Duran - fired rifle shots at the White House, for which he was convicted of the attempted assassination of American President Bill Clinton (1994)

E

 * Ehud - Israelite judge, who assassinated the Moabite king Eglon (Judges 3:12-30.)
 * Theodor Eicke - arrested and killed co-founder of the SA Ernst Röhm on orders from Adolf Hitler (1934)
 * George Elser - lone assassin who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler via a time bomb at Bürgerbräukeller Hall (November 8, 1939)

F

 * John Felton - assassin of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckhingham
 * Giuseppe Fieschi - would-be assassin of King Louis Philippe (July 1835)
 * Robert Ford (outlaw) - assassin of Jesse James
 * Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme - would-be assassin of American President Gerald Ford
 * Fuma Kotaro -ninja assassin for the Hojo Clan during the Sengoku Jidai period

G

 * Nathan Gale - assassin of American heavy metal musician Dimebag Darrell
 * James J. Gallagher - would-be assassin of New York City Mayor William Gaynor (1910)
 * Rolando Galman - supposed assassin of Benigno Aquino, Jr.
 * Balthazar Gérards - assassin of William I of Orange
 * Nathuram Godse - assassin of Mahatma Gandhi
 * Volkert van der Graaf - assassin of Pim Fortuyn
 * Charles J. Guiteau - convicted assassin of the American President James Garfield
 * Khioniya Kozmishna Guseva - attempted to assassinate Grigori Rasputin (1914)
 * Violet Gibson - would-be assassin of Benito Mussolini (1926)

H

 * James Hadfield - would-be assassin of King George III (1800)
 * Charles Harrelson - convicted assassin of Judge John H. Wood, Jr.
 * Hashshashin - the original Iranian assassins
 * Hattori Hanzo - ninja assassin for Tokugawa Iyeasu during the Sengoku Jidai and Edo periods
 * Talmadge Hayer (confessed and convicted), Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson (convicted) - the three assassins of Malcolm X
 * John Hinckley, Jr. - would-be assassin of American president Ronald Reagan
 * Chris James Hines - would-be assassin of Robert Serber (1947)
 * Hitokiri - Japanese assassins during the Bakumatsu
 * Tom Horn, Old West lawman, gunman and killer for hire
 * Ignacy Hryniewiecki - Belarusian assassin of the Russian Emperor Alexander II

I

 * The Invincibles - assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke (1882)
 * Khalid Islambouli - chief assassin of Anwar Al Sadat

J

 * Jing Ke - failed assassin of a Qin king, later Qin Shi Huang, the first Chinese emperor
 * John Parricida of Habsburg -- Killed his uncle King Albert I of Germany (1308)
 * Zvezdan Jovanović - killed Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić (March 12, 2003)

K

 * Fanya Kaplan - attempted assassin of Vladimir Lenin
 * Khalid Sheik Mohammed - conspired with a plot to kill Pope John Paul II as part of the Operation Bojinka terrorist attack plot. The plot was discovered after an apartment fire in Manila, Philippines (January 6 1995)
 * Jan Kubiš - assassin of top Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in Prague (1942). See Operation Anthropoid
 * "Hitokiri" Kawakami Gensai - Japanese assassin during the Bakumatsu.
 * Jakub Kaszuba - assassin of Przemysl II, king of Poland
 * Richard Kuklinski

L

 * Richard Lawrence - would-be assassin of American president Andrew Jackson
 * José de León Toral - assassin of Mexican general and president-elect Álvaro Obregón
 * Luigi Lucheni - assassin of Elisabeth of Austria
 * Byron Looper - assassin of political opponent Tommy Burks

M

 * Marcia (a concubine) and Narcissus (an athlete) - assassins of Roman emperor Commodus. Narcissus strangled the emperor in his bath after Marcia's poison failed to work. The chief architect of the conspiracy was Praetorian prefect Quintus Aemilius Laetus (192AD)
 * Rolando Masferrer Rojas a killer in the Spanish Civil War and later in Cuba, blown up in Miami (1975)
 * Roderick McLean - would-be assassin of Queen Victoria (1882)
 * Jack McCall - assassinated James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok (1876)
 * Thomas McMahon - assassin of Louis Mountbatten
 * Daniel M'Naughton - would-be assassin of British Prime Minister Robert Peel (1843)
 * Ramón Mercader - assassin of Leon Trotsky
 * Mijailo Mijailović - assassin of Anna Lindh
 * Jim Miller, Old West outlaw and "killer for hire"
 * Joseph Mobuto and Moise Tschombe - organized kidnapping and assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, Minister Maurice Mpolo and Senate Vice-President Joseph Okito
 * Sara Jane Moore - would-be assassin of American President Gerald Ford

N

 * Måns Bengtsson Natt och Dag - assassin of Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson (1436)
 * Abu Nidal, attempted assassin of Shlomo Argov, Israeli ambassador to Britain. Actual assassin of dozens of PLO officers (1982)
 * Eligiusz Niewiadomski - assassin of Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president of Poland
 * El Sayyid Nosair - assassin of Meir Kahane

O

 * Alexis Orloff - assassin of Czar Peter III (1762)
 * Felice Orsini - Italian nationalist who failed in his attempt to assassinate Napoleon III (January 14, 1858)
 * Lee Harvey Oswald - Accused assassin of American President John F. Kennedy. Was assassinated himself soon afterwards by Jack Ruby
 * Edward Oxford - would-be assassin of Queen Victoria (1840)

P

 * Pausanias of Orestis - assassin of Philip II of Macedon
 * Richard Paul Pavlick - attempted assassin of John F. Kennedy
 * Christer Pettersson - acquitted of the murder of the Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme
 * Pirouz Nahavandi - assassin of Umar ibn al-Khattab, a close companion of the Prophet Muhammad and the Second Caliph of Islam
 * Otto Planetta and others - assassin of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
 * Lewis Powell or Lewis Paine - would-be assassin of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward (1865)
 * Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast - assassinated Carter Henry Harrison, Sr., Mayor of Chicago (October 28, 1893)
 * Gavrilo Princip - the Serbian nationalist who killed Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and hence triggered World War I
 * pl:Michał Piekarski - would be assassin of King Sigismund III of Poland

R

 * Puniša Račić - assassin of Stjepan Radić
 * Thenmuli Rajaratnam - assassin of the Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi
 * François Ravaillac - assassin of Henry IV of France
 * James Earl Ray - convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr (pled guilty but later asserted his innocence)
 * Otto Rothstock - assassin of Hugo Bettauer (1925)
 * Gennaro Rubino - would-be assassin of King Léopold II of Belgium (1902)
 * Jack Ruby - convicted assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald
 * Juan Roa Sierra - assassin of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, leader of Colombia's Liberal Party (1948), triggering one of South America's most violent episodes

S

 * Yolanda Saldivar - convicted for the murder of Selena Quintanilla
 * Eugen Schauman - assassin of Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov
 * Alexandros Schinas - assassin of King George I of Greece
 * John Schrank - would-be assassin of Theodore Roosevelt
 * Yuan Shikai - alleged mastermind behind assassination of Sung Chiao-jen
 * Sholom Schwartzbard - Jewish anarchist and political assassin of Symon Petliura, the head of the government-in-exile of the Ukrainian People's Republic in Paris
 * Miles Sindercombe - leader of the would-be assassins of Oliver Cromwell
 * Beant Singh and Satwant Singh - assassins of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
 * Udham Singh, assassin of Michael O'Dwyer
 * Sirhan Sirhan - assassin of Robert F. Kennedy
 * Valerie Solanas - failed assassin of Andy Warhol
 * Talduwe Somarama - assassin of Ceylonese prime minister Solomon Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike
 * Claus von Stauffenberg - colonel of the Wehrmacht who led the abortive July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler through a bomb at Wolfsschanze and led an insurrection in Berlin and Paris

T

 * Ernst Tandefelt - assassin of Heikki Ritavuori
 * Soghomon Tehlirian - assassin of Talaat Pasha
 * Henning von Tresckow - key conspirator in the German anti-Nazi Resistance who initiated several assassination attempts on Hitler (all unsuccessful), the most well-known of which was the plan to destroy Hitler's plane at Smolensk (1943)
 * Dimitri Tsafendas - second assassin to make an attempt (successfully) on Hendrik Verwoerd's life

V

 * Vittorio Vidali (aka "Comandante Contreras") - communist assassin in Civil War Spain and Mexico, became Senator in Italy
 * Raoul Villain - assassin of Jean Jaurès

W

 * Janusz Walus - convicted assassin of South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani just before the first Democratic Elections of South Africa
 * Patrick J. Whelan - convicted assassin of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
 * Carl Weiss - Accused assassin of United States Senator from Louisiana and Former Governor Huey P. Long
 * Dan White - Convicted assassin of mayor of San Francisco George Moscone and councilman Harvey Milk (1978)
 * Craig Williamson - assassin by letterbomb of Ruth First (1982); assassin by letterbomb of Jeanette and Katrina Schoon (1984); alleged mastermind of the Olof Palme (1986) and Dulcie September (1988) assassinations

Y

 * Yarankash - assassin of Zengi
 * Felix Yusupov - assassin of Grigori Rasputin

Z

 * Giuseppe Zangara - assassin of Anton Cermak, mayor of Chicago, Illinois and would-be assassin of American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt