It would be impossible today to find the grave of Eli Cohen, a Mossad agent who was captured and executed in Syria in 1965, a former Syrian official said recently.
In an interview to al-Arabiya satellite TV channel, Mounzer Mously, who was bureau chief of then-President Amin Hafiz, said that Cohen had been buried in the Mazzeh quarter of Damascus. "His burial place has since become a built-up area with streets and parks. Nobody can ever reach him," he said.
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"He told me that espionage was not his profession and that he did not work for any authority in Israel or elsewhere. He said that he was an Egyptian Jew from Alexandria and that he had been recruited to work in Syria," Mously recalled.
He also denied that President Hafiz had personally known Cohen and explained that "the president himself, being a former intelligence officer, doubted (Cohen being Argentinean – R.N.) because he had Jewish features."
The official added that stories about Cohen had been blown out of "proportions" and that he was, in fact, not very successful as an agent. Cohen had not managed to infiltrate the hub of Syrian power, as the stories claimed and he had only sent general information and nothing of significance.
"His story had been exaggerated to undermine Syria, as if he was a spy who had transmitted Syria's deepest secrets. I call upon those who say otherwise to publish Cohen's reports so that people can read them and see for themselves," he said.
Eli Cohen's widow, Nadia, rebuffed Mously's comments. "His statement does not sound credible to me," she told Ynet. "Syria is trying to exclude Eli from negotiations, so they are claiming these things.
"I don't think that residential neighborhoods are built on top of cemeteries. I don't believe what he said. No country would build buildings and pave roads over a grave yard. They have Eli, and if they don't know where he is they should look for him. I don't want to believe such things," she said.
Regarding her husband's alleged apology, Nadia answered that "Eli might have apologized for his actions, and that doesn't matter. Any agent might apologize under the torture he was put through."
She also said that today Mously might think that the information Eli transmitted to Israel was not important but at the time they were very significant.
"Eli revolutionized the Arab world, he made an earthquake in Syria," she stated.
Raanan Ben-Zur contributed to the report
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