Denis Michael Rohan

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Denis Michael Rohan

Denis Michael Rohan , the name is also given as Michael Denis William Rohan , (* July 1, 1941 , † October 6, 1995 ) was an Australian citizen who carried out an arson attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 1969 and thus one triggered severe political crisis.

From Australia to Israel

Denis Michael Rohan, like his mother and at least one of his siblings, had psychiatric experience. Although psychiatrists later attested him an average intelligence, he was considered mentally retarded in his school days and was ridiculed by classmates.

As an adult, Rohan initially managed to lead a relatively normal life. He found recognition and social contacts through his work as a sheep shearer ; He married. When he got stressed, he sometimes heard voices. It first happened in Grenfell in March 1964, when his wife left him with their two-month-old baby. He then spent four months in a psychiatric facility.

Rohan's life took a new turn when he came across scriptures from the Worldwide Church of God . He became a member, which meant he paid tithing to the Church and subscribed to its magazine, The Plain Truth . The church founder Herbert W. Armstrong represented some special doctrines that give the Worldwide Church of God a special color. But like many theologians from the evangelical spectrum, he saw in 1967 Israel's capture of the old city of Jerusalem as a sign that the end of the world was near; the end-time events would begin with the building of a new Jewish temple on the Temple Mount and the resumption of the sacrificial cult.

Rohan traveled to Great Britain. His church had a college there that he wanted to enroll in. However, he did not pursue this plan, but worked in a hospital in Middlesex . He actually wanted to travel to Canada, but because of the Canadian winter he made a different decision and chose Israel as his next destination.

In March 1969, Rohan came to Israel by ship on a tourist visa. He worked for several months as a volunteer at Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon and learned Hebrew on the side. He stood out among the volunteers for his seriousness, but also fitted in well with everyday work. He liked to talk about religious subjects, which was ignored. The familiar atmosphere among the 40 or so volunteers who accepted Rohan with his peculiarities led to a psychological crisis. After singing Hinne ma tov in the evening with the volunteers, he had a breakdown at night and developed new fantasies: he was a Jew because he was related to the British royal family, which, according to the teachings of his church, descended from King David ( British-Israel- Theory ). Prince Charles was ceremonially installed as heir to the throne on July 1, 1969, and his birthday was on July 1; he regarded this date correspondence as a supernatural clue.

Stay in Jerusalem and attack

12th century minbar, destroyed by arson in 1969 (photo taken before 1939)
Carving, detail

Rohan left the kibbutz and moved to Jerusalem for two weeks. Since he now believed himself to be a descendant of King David, he stayed at King David , the most expensive hotel in town. He spent a lot of time on the Temple Mount , socialized with Muslims, and was known for his high tips.

As he explained later during his trial, he was of the opinion that the Al-Aqsa mosque prevented the Second Coming of Jesus Christ by its existence and should therefore be removed. While it is usually assumed that the Solomonic Temple was in the area of ​​the Dome of the Rock , Rohan located it under al-Aqsa and therefore concentrated his planning on this building.

Rohan made an initial attempt at arson by hiding on a somewhat secluded tree on the Haram grounds, waiting for the evening there and pushing a plastic tube under the mosque door through which he ran gasoline inside. Despite the closed haram doors, he got outside unrecognized; The fuse he had laid burned up without causing any damage and was not even noticed by the guards.

On August 21, 1969, he arranged to meet a guard from the Waqf at the Lion Gate . Allegedly he wanted to take undisturbed photos in the Haram in the morning before the official opening hours. He bought a ticket at the Mughrabi Gate and entered the area with a bag that contained two canisters and a bottle of kerosene and gasoline. His companion let him enter the al-Aqsa mosque alone. Rohan's goal was a historic cedar pulpit ( minbar ) that Saladin had donated in the 12th century to commemorate his victory over the Crusaders. He soaked a scarf in kerosene. He spilled the rest of the petroleum and gasoline on the cedar beams of the pulpit and on flammable objects near it. He draped the scarf on a step of the minbar and lit it. Then he left the mosque, said goodbye to the guard who had let him in, and left the haram before the fire was discovered. He took a taxi to the bus stop and from there by bus to the kibbutz.

Fire fighting

The fire spread quickly. The column of smoke rising from al-Aqsa could be seen all over the city. Volunteers flocked to help delete. There was a single fire engine in the old town; It took the crew a long time to lay out the hoses on the esplanade of the Haram, and it took about an hour for other fire engines to arrive from Bethlehem and further afield. Jewish and Arab fire brigades fought the fire together for four hours, but could not prevent the precious pulpit from being completely burned and the ceiling of the east apse from collapsing.

When they arrived, some of the Israeli fire engines were pelted with stones by angry Palestinians, their hoses cut: a rumor had spread that the Israelis did not want to extinguish the fire, but rather to fan the fire with kerosene. On the other hand, the Muslim Council accused the Jerusalem city administration of deliberately delaying the arrival of the Israeli fire brigade on site.

Police investigation

In Rohan's Jerusalem hotel room, the investigators found a bottle of gasoline and a slip of paper with the name of his kibbutz. Rohan was arrested there the next morning. When questioned after his arrest, Rohan immediately made a full confession. He declared that he was God's chosen one and was commissioned to build the Jewish temple. To prove his election, he had to destroy the mosque beforehand.

Reactions to the attack

  • In the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, the Palestinians responded with a general strike .
  • In the Muslim world, Israel was believed to be behind the attack. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser declared it the sacred duty of all Arab states to wage war against Israel. King Faisal ordered the Saudi army to prepare for jihad .
  • 24 UN members from the Arab region called on the UN Security Council to act. The Jordanian UN Ambassador Muhammad al-Farrah formulated the suspicion in the room as follows: "According to reports from Israeli sources, this Australian citizen is a friend of Israel who was brought into the country by the Jewish Agency to work there."
  • September 15, 1969: The UN Security Council condemned the act in its resolution 271.
  • September 25, 1969: The conference of the kings and heads of state of Islamic states met because of the attack on the al-Aqsa mosque in Rabat (Morocco). The 24 participating states agreed on a common approach to repelling attacks on the Muslim community, which then led to the establishment of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation .

Police investigation and trial

Two months after the attack, on October 7, 1969, the trial began at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem . The presiding judge was Henry F. Baker; Rohan's defense was taken over by Yitzhak Tunik, a well-known criminal defense attorney from Tel Aviv. As a public prosecutor, Meir Shamgar was involved in the case, who had also participated in the Eichmann trial . The process was very important for the State of Israel to convince the world public that Israelis were not involved in the arson attack. Rohan was charged with arson and violating a sacred site in two cases each. He declared himself innocent, which he revoked the next day. In addition to Rohan's own statements during the interrogation, the court had before him color slides that Rohan had made in front of and in the mosque before his crime and that, according to the police, showed combustible material inside the mosque. The defense stated that Rohan was insane at the time of the crime; psychiatrists from Australia who had treated Rohan before his arrival in Israel were also heard.

For Rohan, the seven weeks the trial lasted was the highlight of his life, according to trial reporter Abraham Rabinovich. He was able to express his religious views in front of an attentive audience. A divine voice promised him that he would build the new temple and that all the virgins of Israel would give birth to his descendants, but Zippora (his Hebrew teacher in the kibbutz) would be his wife.

During the trial, Rohan was diagnosed with hereditary schizophrenia by all reviewers . The reporter of the time reported to his readership in detail about the life of the accused, which arose empathy; Rohan looked less like a case of religious madness than a "sick, lonely vagabond."

The court concluded that Rohan carried out the act of arson "under a pathological impulse that he could not control." Rohan was admitted indefinitely to psychiatry on December 31, 1969, with the Department of Justice to determine the location.

Next life

Rohan's whereabouts changed several times. His mental health deteriorated after the sentence was announced. He had hallucinations and thought he was the Messiah. On September 3, 1970, he fled a psychiatric clinic in Beer Yaacov , but was picked up by the police after a few hours and then transferred to a psychiatric institution in the old Crusader fortress of Akko. He said he had fled to meet his "queen" Zippora. In 1974 he was transferred to Australia, where he spent the rest of his life in a mental health facility (Callan Park Hospital).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Rohan Pleads Innocent to El Aksa Mosque Arson Charges Before Packed Courtroom . Jewish Telegraphic Agency , October 7, 1969.
  2. ↑ a b c d Yaron Druckman: The 'king of Jerusalem' who almost burnt down Al Aqsa . In: ynetnews, 23 August 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Abraham Rabinovich: How an Australian sheepshearer's al-Aqsa arson nearly torched Middle East peace . In: The Times of Israel, 23 August 2019
  4. ↑ a b c Abraham Rabinovich: The man who torched al-Aksa Mosque . In: The Jerusalem Post, September 4, 2014.
  5. ^ A b c d e Gershom Gorenberg: The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount . Oxford University Press, New York 2000, p. 109.
  6. ^ Gershom Gorenberg: The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount . Oxford University Press, New York 2000, pp. 109f.
  7. ^ Gershom Gorenberg: The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount . Oxford University Press, New York 2000, p. 107.
  8. ↑ a b c d Alan Balfour: Solomon's Temple: Myth, Conflict, and Faith . Wiley, Chichester 2012, p. 265.
  9. ^ Gershom Gorenberg: The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount . Oxford University Press, New York 2000, p. 108.
  10. ↑ Quoted from: Benjamin Pogrund : Drawing Fire: Investigating the Accusations of Apartheid in Israel . Roewman & Littlefield, Lanham et al. 2014, p. 194.
  11. ^ Resolution 271
  12. ^ Curtis FJ Doebbler: Dictionary of Public International Law . Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham et al. 2018, p. 408.
  13. ↑ a b El Aksa Mosque Fire Trial Recessed Until Oct. 30 for Rohan Psychiatric Tests . Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 14, 1969.
  14. ^ Rohan Tells Court God Intended to Make Him 'king of Jerusalem and Judaea' . Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 31, 1969.
  15. ↑ a b Sandra Schmitt: The Struggle for the Self: Schizophrenia in Science, Society and Culture after 1945 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, p. 303.
  16. ^ Dietrich Strothmann: The arsonist behind armored glass. Judgment day in Jerusalem: Denis Michael Rohan awaits his judgment . In: Die Zeit, December 5, 1969.
  17. ^ Court Rules Rohan Insane, Orders Him Confined in Mental Institution . Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 31, 1969.
  18. ↑ Man Who Set Fire to Aksa Mosque Escapes from Mental Hospital, Captured by Police . Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 4, 1970.

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Commons : Denis Michael Rohan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Rohan, Denis Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rohan, Michael Denis William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian assassin
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1941
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1995