Sylvia Raphael
Sylvia Raphael Schjødt (born 1 April 1937 – 9 February 2005) was a South African-born Israeli Mossad agent, convicted of murder in Norway for her involvement in the Lillehammer affair. Background. Sylvia Raphael was born on 1 April 1937, near Cape Town, South Africa. Raphael, whose father was a Jewish atheist and mother was Christian, was raised in her mother's religion. Having witnessed an antisemitic incident in her native country as a child, however, she immigrated to Israel in 1963. She initially lived on a kibbutz and later worked as a teacher before moving to Tel Aviv . There she was recruited by Mossad. After training she attained the rank of “combatant,” the highest rank for a Mossad agent, which qualified Raphael to operate in foreign countries. She was sent to Paris in the guise of a freelance journalist with a Canadian passport in the name of real-life Canadian photojournalist Patricia Roxborough. When the Israeli government decided to track down the Black September operatives who committed the Munich massacre in Munich, West Germany, in 1972, Raphael provided valuable intelligence that led to the killing of three. She was then assigned to an Operation Wrath of God team . This was a covert operation directed by Mossad to assassinate individuals involved in the 1972 Olympics Munich massacre. Lillehammer affair. Raphael was part of a group of Mossad agents who mistakenly assassinated Morocco-born waiter Ahmed Bouchiki (brother of Chico Bouchikhi) in Lillehammer, Norway, on 21 July 1973, an incident which became known as the Lillehammer affair. The agents claimed to have mistaken Bouchiki for Ali Hassan Salameh, the chief organizer for Black September who had planned the Munich massacre. Raphael was arrested shortly after the killing. On February 1, 1974, the Eidsivating Court of Appeal convicted her of planned  murder (the most serious murder conviction under Norwegian law), espionage, and use of forged documents. Despite being sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison, she was released after serving 15 months and deported from Norway as a foreign criminal in May 1975, as foreigners convicted of serious crimes are routinely deported after serving their sentences. After her release, Raphael married her Norwegian defense attorney, Annæus Schjødt, but she was deported again after re-entering the country in 1977. Two years later she obtained a residence permit, but she left the country with her husband in 1992, settling in  her native South Africa where she died in February 2005, aged 67, from cancer. A square named after her was erected in the Israeli town of Migdal. Documentary. In 2016, director Saxon Logan compiled a documentary movie on her life called "Sylvia: Tracing Blood."