Rafi Eitan, a legendary Israeli Mossad spy who led the capture of Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann, has died at the age of 92.
Key points:
- Mr Eitan led the mission to arrest a top Nazi official who went into hiding after World War II
- Because of Mr Eitan’s work, Eichmann was brought to trial, convicted of crimes against humanity and hanged
- The former spy went on to have a career in politics, serving as a party leader in his early 80s
Mr Eitan was one of the founders of Israel’s vaunted intelligence agency and among its most prominent figures in Israel and abroad.
The 1960 Mossad operation to capture Eichmann in Argentina and bring him to trial in Jerusalem remains one of the defining episodes in Israel’s history.
Known as the “architect of the Holocaust” for his role in coordinating the Nazi genocide policy, Eichmann fled Germany after World War II and assumed the name Ricardo Klement in Argentina.
Mr Eitan, who headed the seven-man team which travelled to Argentina, grabbed Eichmann on the way back to his Buenos Aires home, shoved him into a car and spirited him to a safe house.
In the back seat of the car, one agent shoved a gloved hand inside Eichmann’s mouth in case he had a cyanide pill hidden in a tooth, as some former top Nazis were known to have to foil their capture.
Mr Eitan identified Eichmann by searching his body for distinctive scars on his arm and stomach.
“And once I felt it I was convinced. This is the man — we got Eichmann,” he recalled years later.
Eichmann’s ensuing trial brought to life the horrors of the Nazi Final Solution, which followed Eichmann’s blueprint for liquidating the entire Jewish population of Europe.
Eichmann was convicted in 1961 of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He was hanged the following year — the only time Israel has carried out a judicial death sentence.
The mission was dramatised on screen in 1996 TV movie The Man Who Captured Eichmann and, more recently, in the 2018 film Operation Finale.
Mr Eitan, a friend of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, began his career fighting in the Palmach pre-state army, where he was wounded in battle and became partially deaf.
It was then he also earned his nickname, Stinky Rafi, after hiding in a pit of sewage while on a mission.
He went into business and later in life entered politics and scored an election sensation in 2006 as head of the Pensioners Party, garnering seven seats in the 120-seat parliament and becoming a Cabinet minister in Ehud Olmert’s government.
Mossad director Yossi Cohen said the majority of Mr Eitan’s exploits still remained unknown to the general public.
“The foundations that Rafi laid in the first years of the state are a significant layer in the activities of the Mossad even today,” he said.
“Rafi was among the heroes of the intelligence services of the State of Israel on countless missions on behalf of the security of Israel,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“His wisdom, wit and commitment to the people of Israel and our state were without peer.”