At the foot of the scaffold, an old rabbi began to mumble a prayer. Above, the executioner, a giant named Abbu-Salim, tried to place a hood over the condemned man's head. But Cohen refused. Seconds later, the rope was placed around his neck and after two minutes, Eli Cohen was declared dead. One of the most famous spies had died.
Israel has never forgotten him: the anniversary of his disappearance was officially celebrated in 2000 and a commemorative stamp was produced. That same year, Prime Minister Ehud Barak formally requested that his remains be returned to Israel to be buried. Syria refused, just as it had done so on numerous occasions beforehand, despite the urgings of various Israeli governments.
Eli Cohen had notably been compared to Richard Sorge, the famous Soviet spy who was able to warn the USSR of Hitler's plans to attack, in June 1941. However, the circumstances in which this Israeli spy, who had infiltrated Damascus to the heart of the Syrian ruling classes, was unmasked has never been quite clear.
In intelligence parlance, Eli Cohen was called an ‘illegal', meaning that he enjoyed no protective status, such as a diplomat, for example. As an ‘illegal', he instilled himself inside a foreign land using a false identity and then waited to be activated by his governing bosses. Such a process can often take a long time and very few intelligence agencies use ‘illegals', because the preparation is so long and costly. However, it is a system that was often used by the Soviets and the Israelis too.
An ‘illegal' must be a person of exceptional character: someone with nerves of steel who could operate in a hostile environment, and who had to be constantly vigilant not to stray from the back story that had been created for him.
This back story, or ‘legend' in intelligence jargon, meant the agent's false personality: his new identity, fake past, everything, in short, that characterises someone. An ‘illegal' is an individual with two lives, but they must be careful not to forget too much of their first!
Eli Cohen was born in the early 1920s in Alexandria, where there was a strong Jewish community. He received a traditional education as the Jews of Alexandria were very attached to Hebrew orthodox beliefs. The young Eli, the offspring of a modest Syrian family, was also well-educated. He was good at languages and besides Hebrew and Arabic, also spoke excellent French. He was a clever boy who was passionate about maths and dreamed of becoming an engineer, after narrowly failing the rabbinate. However, circumstances would decide otherwise. During the Second World War, the young man quickly took up with the Zionist circles to which he adhered. Still in Alexandria at the time, he was involved in covert actions to enable Egyptian Jews to reach Palestine. He dreamed of going there himself, although his leaders felt that he was more useful to the cause in Egypt and it was 1957 before he went to Israel. He had previously spent several months in prison, as he had been working closely with an Israeli spy network based in Egypt, some members of which had been sentenced to death. Luckily for Cohen, he managed to slip though the nets.
Cohen therefore already had intelligence experience when he arrived in Israel to join his family, who had emigrated there years before. He first worked as a translator at the Ministry of Defence, putting his excellent gift for languages to good use: in Egypt he had also learnt English, Italian, Spanish and German. It is hardly an accident that he was recruited by the Ministry, who were aware of the services he had performed in Egypt.
He should really have been recruited by the secret service, but in the world of intelligence, prudence is the key. At first, Mossad simply observed the young man from a distance so as to know him better. After a difficult adjustment period, Cohen was soon well-integrated into Israeli society, changing his employer and even getting married. One day, he announced to his wife, Nadia, that he had been hired as an executive in a big commercial company, which would often require him to travel abroad. In fact, he had been hired by Mossad. Now deemed capable, he was taken in hand by a man nicknamed ‘the Dervish', whose real name was Yitzhak Shamir, the future Prime Minister.
This former member of the formidable terrorist group, Stern, had entered the secret service in the mid 1950s. A small man with a big moustache, ‘the Dervish' was experienced and spent many months training his protege. He taught him how to know when someone was tailing him, and then how to lose them, not to mention working under a false identity or engaging him in visual memory exercises.
Cohen did not yet know the mission he was being trained for. At the time, he was concentrating on becoming the perfect agent, or a katsa, as it was called by Mossad. However, when ‘the Dervish' started showing him examples of weapons used in the Arab countries, he understood where he was to be sent. It was fairly obvious, especially since Cohen also had another advantage: as well as speaking fluent Arabic, he also had brown hair and a tanned complexion, allowing him to pass easily for a native Muslim in the Middle East.
He had now been in Israel for nearly three years, but his training was not yet complete. He still needed to study Islam and go to the local mosques. Finally, at the end of I960, his instructor revealed his destination, Syria, and his new identity, or ‘legend'. From now on, Eli Cohen would be known as Kamel Amin Thaabet, a typical Syrian name. He was
