Sylvia Rafael, 67, Mossad Agent In ’73 Norway Case
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Sylvia Rafael, whose death on February 9 of leukemia in South Africa has been reported by Israeli newspapers, was a Mossad agent. Her involvement in the 1973 assassination of a misidentified Arab waiter in Lillihammer, Norway, was among the Israeli spy agency’s most embarrassing moments.
She was part of a Mossad team who had identified Ahmed Bouchiki as a member of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, responsible for the slaughter of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The team had meant to kill Hassan Ali Salameh, Black September’s operations chief. Bouchiki, who was killed in front of his pregnant wife as he exited a bus, turned out to be an innocent Moroccan.
Rafael, posing as a Canadian photographer, was soon arrested by Norwegian police, along with five other agents. For her role in the killing, she was sentenced to five years in prison. She served 11 months before being deported to Israel.
In 1978, Rafael returned to Norway and married the Norwegian who had served as her defense lawyer. After attempts on her life were made, they moved to Pretoria, South Africa.
In 1981, Italy unsuccessfully sought Rafael’s extradition in connection with the 1972 killing of an Al Fatah official, Abdel Weil Zuaiter, who was gunned down on a Rome street.
“One day, when true peace comes, they will write books about her, make movies of her life and name streets after her,” Eitan Haber, a defense correspondent, wrote in Yediot Aharonot, according to the Jerusalem Post.
But the man identified as the Mossad unit’s leader, Mike Harari, said: “The time has not come yet for historic truths.” Mr. Harari’s comment appeared in an account of Rafael’s burial at Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh, in the February 16 issue of Haaretz.
Rafael was born in 1937 near Cape Town and emigrated to Israel in 1963. After living on a kibbutz and working as an English teacher, she moved to Tel Aviv, where she was recruited by the Mossad. “She attained the highest rank of ‘combatant,’ agents who are trained to operate in enemy countries,” Haaretz reported.
