Rafi Eitan, an Israeli spymaster who masterminded the capture of one of the key architects of the Holocaust, has died aged 92. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Eitan a “hero of the Israeli intelligence services.” Eitan was the operational head of the mission to capture Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of the Holocaust, in Argentina and bring him to trial in Jerusalem. Eitan’s team kidnapped Eichmann in May 1960 and smuggled him back to Israel where he was tried and found guilty of war crimes. He was hanged in 1962. Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, director, said the majority of Eitan’s work still remains unknown to the public. “His work and his actions will be etched in gold letters in the annals of the state,” Cohen said in a statement on Saturday. “The foundations that Rafi laid in the first years of the state are a significant layer in the activities of the Mossad even today.”
