Lillehammer affair

The Lillehammer affair refers to the murder by Mossad agents of a Moroccan waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki, in Lillehammer, Norway on July 21, 1973. The agents had been sent by Israel as part of Operation Wrath of God to assassinate Ali Hassan Salameh, the leader of the Black September Organization, a Palestinian group that carried out the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. They mistook Bouchiki for their target and shot him repeatedly as he walked back from a cinema to his apartment with his pregnant wife. Two members of the assassination team were arrested the next day as they re-used a getaway car to go to the airport. After their interrogation the whole cell was arrested. Incriminating documents and the keys to a network of safe houses were discovered. [cite web| url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/11/20/60II/main318655.shtml| date=2001-11-20| title=An Eye For An Eye| publisher=CBS]

Of the at least nine Mossad agents who participated directly in the assassination (Michael Harari, Dan Ærbel, Ethel Marianne Gladnikoff, Abraham Gehmer, alias Leslie Orbaum, Sylvia Rafael, alias Patricia Lesley Roxburgh, Victor Zipstein alias Zwi Steinberg, Michael Dorf, Gustav Pistauer, Jean-Luc Sevenier, Jonathan Isaac Englesberg alias Jonathan Ingleby, "Tamara" alias "Tamar" alias "Marie", Rolf Baehr, Gerard Lafond, Raoul Cousin, Nora Heffner), six were captured by the Norwegian authorities and five were convicted of Bouchiki's murder. Harari as well as the two killers escaped and Dorf was acquitted. The five convicts were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two and a half to five years but all were released within 22 months and deported to Israel.

Michael Harari, the leader of the assassins, managed to escape and was never extradited by Israel to Norway. The Israeli government has not admitted responsibility for the murder [cite web| url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,193475,00.html| date=2000-03-02| title=Norway solves riddle of Mossad killing| publisher=The Guardian] , but in 1996 paid compensation equal to US$283,000 split between Bouchiki's wife and daughter, and a separate settlement of US$118,000 to a son from a previous marriage. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02E6DA1639F93BA15752C0A960958260 World News Briefs;Israelis to Compensate Family of Slain Waiter - New York Times ] (1996-01-28)]

The September 2004 book release of "Mange liv" (Many lives) by the former lawyer Annæus Schjødt, who represented two of the agents in the case and later married one of them, Sylvia Raphael, claimed that one of the arrested agents, Dan Ærbel, leaked information to the Norwegian government about the Israeli nuclear weapons program. However, the Norwegian government decided to remain silent about their findings. Information relating to Israel's development and possession of nuclear weapons was not made public until Mordechai Vanunu exposed the program in October 1986, some 13 years later.

References

External links

* [http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/calahan.htm "The Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Development of Independent Covert Action Teams" (includes an extensive overview of the Lillehammer Affair)] Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College by Alexander B. Calahan, GS-12, Graduate Class for the degree of Master of Military Studies, April 1995.Death in Lillehammer the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0wqHyhmzoI
* [http://saba.fateback.com/plumbat/plumbatindex.htm Further names of individuals involved in the affair]