The Perpetrators
The attack at Munich Airport was carried out by three young members of the ‘Action Organisation for the Liberation of Palestine’. The perpetrators, who came from Jordan and Egypt, travelled with counterfeit passports and false identities. Even afterwards, the German police were unable to establish their real names beyond doubt. Mufeed Al Gawabri (alias Mohamed El Hanafi), Nachàat Omar Ibrahim (alias Mohamed Hadidi) and Abdel Rahim Saleh Mustafa Saleh (alias Abder Rahman Saleh) – the names cited in press reports – were arrested at the airport. Two injured perpetrators were treated in hospital.
Issam Sartawi, the founder of the “Action Organisation for the Liberation of Palestine”, is considered the mastermind behind the attack. He was born in 1935 in Acre, in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. Sartawi became a doctor and was later a confidant of Yassir Arafat. In April 1983, he was murdered by supporters of a rival group.
During cross-examinations on the Munich Airport terrorist attack, Ibrahim distanced himself, with hindsight, from the offence; Al Gawabri and Saleh on the other hand admitted their anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli motivation. The lawyer Till Burger acted in their defence. Even before their trial began, their release was obtained by ransom in September 1970 following several plane hijackings and they were expelled from Germany. None of them were brought to justice for their act of terrorism or for Arie Katzenstein’s murder.
