The Bizarre Aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympic Disaster

On October 29, 1972, just seven weeks after the 1972 Olympic Munich tragedy that saw the death of 11 Israeli athletes, a Lufthansa Boeing 727 left Damascus, Syria, bound for Frankfurt, Germany, with a stop in Beirut. Two Black September terrorists boarded the plane and demanded to be flown to Munich. They called for the release of the three remaining terrorists, who had survived the carnage at Furstenfeldbruck Airport in Munich: Jamal Al-Gashey, Adnan Al-Gashey, and Mohammed Safady. Without consulting the Israeli government, Chancellor Willy Brandt had the terrorists released saying, "The passengers and crew were threatened with annihilation . . . I then saw no alternative but to yield to this ultimatum and avoid further senseless bloodshed."[1] The three terrorists initially thought they were being taken to another prison but they were flown to Zagreb, Yugoslavia, where the Lufthansa plane had been diverted. The plane then flew to Tripoli, Libya, where the three were greeted as heroes. Mass celebrations erupted throughout the Middle East.

A Staged Hijacking - A Deal with Black September?

Later there were questions about the hijacking. Why were there no passengers on the plane as it left Damascus? Why were there only 12 passengers and no women or children on the plane as it left Beirut? Why had the German government so quickly agreed to the demands? When Jamal Al-Gashey was back on Arab soil he found out why: Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leaders told him that the entire hijacking had been a setup between the PLO and the German government. Fearing more trouble from Black September or the Red Army Faction, Brandt and senior German officials had allowed the hijacking to be staged so Brandt could release the three terrorists in exchange for an agreement by the PLO to stay out of Germany. Lufthansa had previously been involved with a deal with the PLO in February 1972 when Lufthansa paid the PLO a ransom of $5 million.

Black September's agreement to stay out of Germany did not last long. On March 1, 1973, eight Black September terrorists struck again seizing a Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. Among their demands was the release of the surviving Japanese Red Army terrorist of the Tel Aviv Airport attack, Kozo Okamoto, as well as Meinhof, Baader, and the rest of the Red Army Faction that languished in German prisons. When their demands were refused, the terrorists murdered U.S. ambassador Claude Noel and two other diplomats.[2]

Jamal Al-Gashey, nineteen-years-old at the time of the Munich attack and the only surviving member of the original Black September hit squad, lived into the twenty-first century by hiding in Africa. He was interviewed for the film One Day in September, which won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Documentary.[3] In this film, German government officials Ulrich Wegener and Hans-Jochen Vogel admitted that the Germans had staged the hijacking, though Germany never officially recognized it.

Ali Hassan Salameh and Miss Universe

The staged hijacking infuriated Golda Meir and the Israelis. Even before the October 29th hijacking the Israeli secret intelligence group, Mossad, had mailed letter bombs to PLO leaders. The bombs seriously injured PLO leaders from Algeria and Libya. Meir assembled an assassination squad called The Wrath of God. They targeted the planners of the Munich tragedy, killing two of the terrorist survivors, Adnan Al-Gashey and Mohammed Safady. The Wrath of God assassination team was given the objective to kill the three surviving Munich terrorists and Abu Hassan (Ali Hassan Salameh), the same terrorist who had trained and welcomed the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Palestine two years before. The Israelis mistakenly thought Hassan was the mastermind behind the attack.

Ali Hassan Salameh was taken under the wing of Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. It seemed Arafat was carefully grooming Salameh to take a high position in the PLO. Salameh was seen in the shadow of Arafat in New York at the United Nations and lived a playboy life in gambling casinos and hotels throughout Europe. The Mossad were looking for him but he was not taking a low profile. He married Georgina Rizak, a former Miss Lebanon who won the Miss Universe pageant in Miami in 1971. They honeymooned in Hawaii and Disney World. Over the next several years there were five attempts on the life of Abu Salameh. In 1973, the Mossad thought they had tracked him down in Norway. Israeli agents tracked him with a pregnant woman on a bus. When he left the bus he was shot 14 times. However, the man was not Salameh; he was a Moroccan waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki and the pregnant woman was his wife. The Mossad had missed their target.

The Beirut Mata Hari Exacts Her Revenge

In November of 1978 a thirty-one-year old University of Southampton geography student arrived in Beirut and took residence in an apartment. She was known in the apartment building as an eccentric who sat by her apartment window painting street scenes. Chambers, also known as Penelope, would be known later as the Beirut Mata Hari or the Mata Hari of Lebanon. She was not interested in art but the street activity, especially the comings and goings of Salameh who was living only a block away.

The street Chambers watched was used by Salameh on many occasions to drive to meetings with Arafat and other PLO associates. The Mossad had arranged a Volkswagen filled with explosives to be parked just beneath Chambers apartment window. Salameh drove by the Volkswagen on January 22, 1979 and was killed when it exploded, the car detonated by a remote control. Four of Salameh's bodyguards were killed as well as, ironically, an innocent bystander: Susan Wareham, a British secretary working in Beirut. One version of the story has the remote control in the hands of Erika "Penelope" Chambers, another says she made a sign to another Mossad agent when Salameh's car was exactly parallel to the Volkswagen. Chambers quickly vanished and lived under the protection of the Mossad in Israel.[4] The sixth attempt on Salameh was successful; he was dead at the age of 38. A fictionalized account of Salameh's life was written by David Ignatius (Agents of Influence) in which Salameh appears as the character Jamal Ramlawi.[5] Salameh also appears as a character in Steven Spielberg's film Munich.

[1] Brandt, Willy. People and Politics, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1978, pp. 439-441.

[2] Henderson, Harry. Global Terrorism, The Complete Reference Guide, Checkman Books, New York, 2001, p. 103.

[3]One Day in September, video, Arthur Cohn Production, Sony Pictures, Kevin MacDonald Director, 1999.

[4] University of Southhampton New Reporter, March 6, 1992, v.9, no.17, People.

[5] Ignatius, David. Agents of Influence, Norton, New York, 1986.