The leader of the commando kidnapped in Argentina in 1960 Adolf Eichmann, one of the main persons responsible for the "final solution", died Saturday in Israel.
Former Israeli spy Rafi Eitan, leader of the commando kidnapped in Argentina in 1960 Adolf Eichmann, one of the leaders of the "final solution", died Saturday at the age of 92 in Israel, announced the Israeli public radio . Rafi Eitan died Saturday afternoon at the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, an Israeli coastal city, according to the public radio that did not give more details.
"Rafi was one of the heroes of Israel's intelligence services, with countless actions in support of Israel's security," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. "We mourn his death." The death of Rafi Eitan also sparked a rare eulogy of the Israeli internal security service, the Shin Bet.
"Rafi, who was one of the founders of the operational branch of Shin Bet, has led and participated in a dozen historical operations that will remain secret for many years," said Nadav Argaman, in a statement. head of Shin Bet. Rafi Eitan was "a born fighter who was sticking to his mission and what he considered fair," Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement.
Under the US arrest warrant
Born in November 1926 in a kibbutz in a Palestine then under British mandate, Rafi Eitan joined the Israeli secret service of Mossad in the 1950s. He then climbed the ladder to take the lead of the Mossad operations and participated in the capture in Buenos Aires of Eichmann, taken to Israel where he is tried and hanged in 1962 for his responsibility in the extermination of six million Jews in 1939-45.
In addition to his role in the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann, Rafi Eitan is also known to have been the dealing agent of Jonathan Pollard, a US Navy analyst arrested in 1985 and jailed in the United States for 30 years for spying for the benefit of Israel. As a result of this affair, which provoked a serious crisis of confidence between the United States and Israel, he is under an American arrest warrant.
In 2006, at the age of 79, he was elected to Parliament and became head of the Pensioners' Party, before becoming Minister for Seniors. He said he had a heart operation a year earlier. "I do not see anything and I do not hear anything but I run every morning, I do sculpture and my wife says I'm fine," he said.