Revealed: Munich Olympic terror mastermind’s drunken life in Prague
In addition to Abu Daoud, newly declassified documents detail time spent in Czechoslovakia by arch-terrorist ‘Carlos the Jackal’
Declassified Czechoslovakian surveillance reports have revealed details of a life of heavy drinking and instability by the Palestinian mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre in Prague under the former communist regime, and the suspicion which his hosts viewed him.
In addition to providing details of Abu Daoud’s drunken escapades in Prague, the intelligence reports, portions of which were published Friday by The Guardian, detail arch-terrorist “Carlos the Jackal’s” time in the country and how the antics of the two in the 1970s and 1980s ultimately led the Czech authorities to boot them from the country.
Daoud (real name Mohammad Daoud Oudeh), who masterminded the 1972 terror attack at the Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered, is noted in the reports for his unruly behavior and his penchant for visiting prostitutes and getting drunk.
In one instance, the East Jerusalem-born Daoud, who is referred to in the intelligence reports as “RAK,” was surveyed stepping out of Prague’s Intercontinental Hotel in a “very drunken state” after meeting with an Iraqi intelligence agent.
“At 2:50am RAK stepped out of the Intercontinental. He was bareheaded, dressed in a light brown suit, and brown shoes, not carrying any items,” one of the surveillance reports said, according to the Guardian. “RAK, with an unsteady walk and hands in his pockets, went to a vehicle parked in front of the main entrance and leaned against it breathing heavily.”
“The manner in which he moved suggested that he was in a very drunken state,” the report added.
In light of Carlos and Daoud’s involvement in terror, their Czechoslovakian hosts were wary of their guests and sought to get them to leave the country.
After being ordered out by the secret police, Daoud was documented in one of the reports ranting over his alleged mistreatment by the Czechoslovakian authorities.
“I will never come back to Czechoslovakia,” he told a hotel employee. “And I will also tell all my friends and acquaintances to look for another state to operate in. I am a decent person and I have never experienced such treatment anywhere in the world.”
The Czechoslovakians were also later able to rid themselves of Carlos the Jackal, a Venezuela native whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who left the country after being falsely told by the secret police that the French intelligence services had sent a team to kill him, according to The Guardian.
In one of the reports, the Czechoslovakian secret police describe how Ramirez ran around a hotel with a revolver after being locked out of his room.
“Between 18:00 and 19:00 BAK had, most probably by accident, locked himself out of his room. As he was unable to get back into his room he went to see the director of the hotel,” the report said, referring to Ramirez as “BAK.”
“He was running around with a gun in his hand – first up and down the hallways and later on in his room,” it continued. “This was a larger revolver. BAK was furious. His room was unlocked with a special key.”
Pictures reveal Carlos the Jackal's clandestine life in communist Prague.https://t.co/wJtYGn5k1a#terrorism #ColdWarHist pic.twitter.com/WiKhZ7mNco
— History of Communism (@HOCommunism) September 9, 2017
Daoud later settled in Syria, where he died in 2010. Ramirez, who is imprisoned in France for the murders of two policemen in Paris in 1975 and of a former comrade who betrayed him, was sentenced to a third life sentence in March for a deadly bombing in Paris in 1974 that left two dead and 34 injured.
The Guardian report came days after a new memorial was inaugurated in Munich to commemorate the victims of the attack at the Olympic games 45 years ago.
During the September 1972 attack on the Munich Olympic Village by the Black September Palestinian terror group, 11 Israelis were taken hostage. Two were murdered in the Olympic village and nine others were executed at the airport. A German policeman was killed in a shootout with the terrorists during a botched rescue attempt.
Speaking at the ceremony inaugurating the memorial, President Reuven Rivlin accused the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah party of continuing to glorify the attack.
“There are still those who see in the murder of sportsmen a heroic deed,” Rivlin said, before singling out the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. “Just last year, Fatah marked the massacre of the sportsmen as an ‘act of heroism.’
Rivlin also said that having waited 45 years for the memorial, Israel is still waiting for another historical injustice to be rectified, and for a minute’s silence to be observed at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games to remember Israel’s dead.
Agencies contributed to this report.
