On this day in 1960, the agents of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad (responsible for the external security of Israel), in cooperation with the agents of Shin Bet security service (responsible for internal security), ambushed the former Nazi Adolf Eichmann when he was returning home from work in Mercedes factory in Argentina. It happened in a suburb of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires.
When Eichmann got off the bus he was approached by a Mossad agent who asked him in Spanish if he can spare a moment. Eichmann got startled and tried to leave, but then two Israelis grabbed him and tackled him to the ground. They put him in a car and hid in a Mossad safe house. Everything was done without the knowledge of the Argentine government, so that it could not prevent the transfer of Eichmann in Israel. They gave him a sedative and disguised him using the uniform of a flight attendant of the El Al airline. While disguised, they smuggled him to the El Al flight from Buenos Aires to Dakar, and then to Israel.
The following year, Eichmann’s trial began in Jerusalem. In order to protect the defendant from the angry families of the victims, he had a booth made of bulletproof glass in the courtroom. Eichmann was convicted on all counts for his involvement in the Holocaust as an SS officer. He was executed by hanging in 1962. It was the only civil execution in Israel’s history as the country otherwise has no death penalty.
