Lillehammer affair
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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 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 flat (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.
Of the seven Mossad agents who participated in the botched assassination (Michael Harari, Dan Ærbel, Abraham Gehmer, Zwi Steinberg, Michael Dorf, Marrianne Gladnikoff, and Yigal Zigal), six were captured by the Norwegian authorities and five were convicted of Bouchiki's murder. (Michael 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 face justice in Norway. After his retirement from the Mossad, he became a well-known mercenary operating in sub-Sahara Africa, Central and South America. The Israeli government attempted to deny responsibility for Bouchiki's murder for 23 years but, in 1996, Israel provided financial compensation to the Bouchiki family.
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, revealed 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.
External link
- The Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Massacre (http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/calahan.htm) - Includes an extensive overview of the Lillehammer Affairno:Lillehammer-saken