Ahmed Bouchiki

Ahmed Bouchiki ( Arabic أحمد بوشيخي, DMG Aḥmad Būšaiḫī ; * April 13, 1943 ; † July 21, 1973 in Lillehammer ) was a Moroccan born in Algeria who had lived and worked in Norway since 1965 . Bouchiki was murdered by the Israeli secret service because of a mistake . This happened in the course of retaliation by the Mossad unit Caesarea for the hostage-taking and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich . Bouchiki was mistaken for one of the assassins by agents of this special unit and shot by them on July 21, 1973 ( Lillehammer affair ). Ahmed Bouchiki was married to the Norwegian Torill Bouchiki since 1972. He was the brother of Chico Bouchikhi , a well-known musician and co-founder of the music group Gipsy Kings .

The confusion

On the basis of false information, the Israeli secret service Mossad believed in the summer of 1973 the assassin Ali Hassan Salameh in Norway. Salameh was a leader of the Black September terrorist group and one of those responsible for the hostage-taking in Munich . After this attack, the Mossad set itself the goal of killing everyone involved. So he sent a liquidation squad to Norway.

Bouchiki had been living in Norway for about eight years at the time and had been married to a Norwegian hospital worker for about a year. He worked as a waiter but wanted to be a lifeguard . To improve his prospects for this, he often trained at the local swimming pool. On July 19, 1973 Bouchiki met Kemal Benamene, who was previously unknown to him. Benamene was suspected by the Mossad of being a Black September courier to meet with Salameh. The following day, when Bouchiki met in a cafe by their names and they exchanged their addresses, this was observed by the Mossad. Because Bouchiki had a certain external resemblance to Salameh, he was mistaken for this. Usually the Mossad worked carefully to avoid confusion with people it was targeting. For example, before the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann , he had worked out his identity for almost three years . In this case, however, the check was extremely superficial: Salameh was quite tall, his body length was at least 1.92 meters, while Bouchiki was only 1.73 meters tall. Also, unlike Salameh, Bouchiki wore a beard, and there was a distinct difference in the line of her eyebrows. Salameh also had a characteristic scar.

Because Bouchiki was apparently fluent in Norwegian , two of the agents who were following Bouchiki expressed doubts about the identification shortly before the planned execution. Nevertheless, the head of operations ordered Bouchiki to be shot. This decision was based on the fact that three of the agents previously believed that they had identified Bouchiki as a Salameh based on a photo.

The murder

On July 21, 1973, Bouchiki first went to the swimming pool and then went to the only cinema in town with his heavily pregnant wife in the evening to see the film Agents Die Lonely . Then the two went home by bus. On the way from the bus stop to the apartment, a white Mazda stopped next to them . Two Israeli agents got out of the car and shot Ahmed Bouchiki in the street with a total of 14 shots in front of his wife. Bouchiki initially received six rounds in the stomach and fell, after which the agents shot him twice in the head. They then shot him six more times in the back. Bouchiki left behind his pregnant wife, a son and a daughter.

Perpetrators and those responsible

In total, at least ten Israeli agents were involved in the action in Lillehammer. The preparation in Israel and Norway was carried out by Gustav Pistauer (code name Den Erst), Jean-Luc Sevenier and Dan Ærbel. The action on site was led by the then European head of the Mossad, "Mike" Georg Manner (alias: Edouard Lasquier), who also personally convinced himself of the death of the alleged Salameh. The then head of the Mossad, Tzwi Zamir , was also present in Lillehammer during the attack . Michael Harari acted as the head of operations . The two perpetrators were Jonathan Isaac Englesberg (alias Jonathan Ingleby) and a young woman named Tamara (also: Tamar or Marie), who was allegedly a professional killer of the Mossad and lover of its European boss Manner. The two were driven by an agent with the code name Rolf Baehr, who was accompanied by Gerard Lafond. Abraham Gehmer (code name: Leslie Orbaum), Victor Zipstein (code name: Zwi Steinberg), Michael Dorf, Marianne Gladnikoff, Sylvia Raphael (code name: Patricia Lesley Roxburgh), Raoul Cousin and Nora Heffner were also involved.

The decision to form the Caesarea special unit and to carry out the retaliatory measures later publicly known under the non-Mossad title Operation Wrath of God or Operation Bayonet was taken by the Israeli Security Cabinet under the leadership of then Prime Minister Golda Meïr in autumn 1972. The first commander of Caesarea was the later Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak .

The consequences

As part of the Norwegian investigation , the two Israeli agents Dan Ærbel and Marianne Gladnikoff who had rented under his own name vehicles were in their return at Oslo Airport Fornebu arrested. During interrogation they revealed the hiding place of the commando, which led to the arrest of four more agents. Norway ignored the immunity claimed by Victor Zipstein alias Zwi Steinberg and Michael Dorf because of their diplomatic passports . The two agents and the head of operations had previously managed to escape undetected. After it became clear that Norway could not be deterred from prosecution by the protest of the Israeli ambassador , who was to be emphasized by an envoy, or by the intervention of the Danish Jew Isi Foighel, Zwi Zamir and Georg Manner also left.

All six arrested were charged. Michael Dorf was acquitted and the others were sentenced to prison terms, which, however, remained well below the minimum sentences customary in Norway. Abraham Gehmer and Sylvia Rafael received five and a half years, Dan Aerbel five years imprisonment for murder and espionage . Marianne Gladnikoff was sentenced to two and a half years, Victor Zipstein to one year. However, the judgments had little practical relevance, as everyone was given generous freedom. Aerbel was released after 19 months for health reasons, the others after 22 months and deported to Israel.

Since Israel refused to extradite the squad leader to Norway, he was never prosecuted for the crime. During the trial, Bouchiki was accused by the defense of having been a sleeper waiting for the order to be issued, which, however, lacked any evidence. It was only in 1996 that the Israeli government paid compensation to Bouchiki's family, but without officially assuming responsibility for the fatal attack on him.

Salameh was killed by the Mossad in 1979 in a car bomb in Beirut.

Sources and Notes

1. ↑ Klein, Aaron J. Striking Back. The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response ; New York, Random House, Inc., 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6427-9 . The information that the retaliatory measures were carried out by a special unit called Caesarea comes from Klein's book, but is now considered certain. However, Caesarea is said to have been reorganized in the 1970s and incorporated into the Kidon division of the Mossad.
2. ^ ZDF: The Olympic Murder ( Memento of March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). 90-minute documentary by Sebastian Dehnhardt , Uli Weidenbach and Manfred Oldenburg

literature

• Klein, Aaron J. Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response . New York: Random House, Inc., 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6427-9
• Klein, Aaron J .: The Avengers ; ISBN 3-421-04205-5
• Bar-Zohar, Michael / Haber, Eitan: Revenge for Munich. Terrorists targeted by the Mossad ; Droste; 1st edition (May 2006); ISBN 3-7700-1238-0
• Jonas, George: Vengeance. The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team 1984, ISBN 0-7432-9164-6 (Reprint edition by Simon & Schuster 2005)
• Jonas, George: Vengeance is ours. An Israeli secret command in action ; Droemer Knaur, 1984 (paperback); ISBN 3-426-26143-X
• Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881–1999 . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1999. ISBN 0-679-42120-3
• Ostrovsky, Victor: By Way of Deception-The making and unmaking of a Mossad Officer . New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. ISBN 0-9717595-0-2
• Reeve, Simon: One Day in September . New York: Arcade Publishing, 2000. ISBN 1-55970-547-7
• 1973: Palestinian gunmen hold diplomats in Sudan from On This Day by BBC News.

Web links

• Extensive article (in English) The Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Massacre