About the inscription pinned onto Eli Cohen's execution shroud:
'Colonel Dalli then attached to the white sackcloth shroud a large placard, the invariable last act of a Syrian execution. On it was written, in Arabic script, the sentence of the Military Court. It read:
Eliahu Ben-Shaul Cohen was sentenced to death in the name of the Arab people of Syria, having been found guilty of penetrating into a military sector and communicating secret information to the enemy".'
- "The Final Night”, pp 5-6 Chapter 1 of The Spy From Israel by Ben Dan, published by Vallentine, Mitchell & Co. Ltd, 1969.
Forty-year-old Cohen had posed as a returnee Syrian businessman from Argentina named "Kamel Amin Thaabet". He managed to penetrate the highest echelons of the Syrian political and military establishment, including becoming the Chief Adviser to the Syrian Minister of Defence.
He was caught by Soviet-made tracking equipment which enabled Syrian counterintelligence to locate the source of coded transmissions to Israeli intelligence.
He was tried by a special military tribunal and condemned to death on May 8th, 1965. Pleas for clemency from world leaders were ignored by the Syrian military government who proceeded to hang him at Marjeh Square (Martyrs Square) in Damascus
Efforts by Cohen's family to have his remains repatriated to Israel have so far been unsuccessful.
© Adeyinka Makinde (2024).
Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.
No comments:
Post a Comment