Eli Cohen - Trial and Execution

Trial and Execution

In January 1965, Syrian efforts to find a high-level mole were stepped up. Using Soviet-made tracking equipment and assisted by hired Soviet experts, a period of radio silence was observed, and it was hoped that any illegal transmissions could be identified. After large amounts of radio interference were detected and traced to their source, Cohen was caught in the act of transmitting to Israel and arrested in a pre-dawn raid on 24 January. After a trial before a military tribunal, he was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death, without the possibility of an appeal. Cohen was repeatedly interrogated and torture. Israel staged an international campaign for clemency, hoping to persuade the Syrians not to execute him. Hoping to put international pressure on Syria to spare Cohen's life, the Israelis approached many governments to press for clemency, and even appealed to the Soviet Union to intercede. Despite many international appeals, including from Pope Paul VI and the governments of France, Belgium and Canada, to persuade the Syrian government to commute the death sentence, he was publicly hanged by Syria on 18 May 1965.

Requests by Cohen's family for his remains to be returned to Israel have been denied by the Syrian government (as of September 2012). In February 2007 a Turkish official confirmed that his government was ready to act as a mediator for the return of Cohen's remains to his family from Syria. In August 2008 Monthir Maosily, the former bureau chief of the late Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad, said that Eli Cohen's burial site is unknown, claiming that the Syrians buried the executed Israeli spy three times, to stop the remains from being brought back to Israel via a special operation. Cohen's brothers, Abraham and Maurice, originally led the campaign to return his remains. Maurice died in 2006. Eli's widow, Nadia, has since led the campaign.

The film The Impossible Spy is a depiction of his life. He is featured at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. A memorial stone has been erected to Cohen in the Garden of the Missing Soldiers in Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.