SEARCH FOR REMAINS OF HANGED ISRAELI SPY RESUMES IN SYRIA

A search for the remains of Israeli spy Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen (Eli Cohen) is taking place in Syria, where he was hanged in 1965, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told i24NEWS, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Cohen, Israel's spy in Syria, was caught, tried, convicted, and executed in Damascus on May 18, 1965, after he clumsily transmitted messages to the Mossad on an Arab holiday, when no one was working and diplomatic missions were shut down.

The prime minister confirmed a report in February by London-based Arabic-language news website Rai al-Youm that Russia is working to locate the remains of Cohen to repatriate them to Israel. Cohen, born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1924 to a Jewish father who was native to Aleppo, Syria, worked for Israeli intelligence but was rebuffed as a katsa (field agent) by the Mossad.

Seeing that his roots were from Syria, Mossad eventually recruited him, sent him off to Argentina to mingle with the Arab community there, and supplied him with money to support his love of horses and hobnob with Syrian diplomats.

He eventually became a top adviser of the Syrian defense minister while passing intelligence to the Mossad.

Cohen was suspected of being an Israeli spy by Syrian counterintelligence and subjected to surveillance, with agents eventually barging into his residence and arresting him on January 24, 1965, as he was transmitting his messages to Israeli. He was hanged on May 18, 1965.

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