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Amina al-Mufti: The most dangerous Arab spies · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine this. The smell of damp concrete, maybe a hint
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of mildew fear. The air is heavy, it's stale, cold,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: really seeps into your bones. Yeah, claustrophobic, exactly below ground.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Confined in a solitary cell somewhere in Beirut, she sits
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: nine days now, silence. They've thrown everything at her, every
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: interrogation technique, every psychological trick. But she's trained too.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, she's a doctor of psychiatry. She knows the game,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: maybe better than they do.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Her name is Amina el Musti, and they finally captured
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: one of the most effective, arguably one of the most
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: dangerous spies the Arab world has ever produced.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: What's really striking when you look into her story is
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: the sheer contrast, the absolute gap between where she came
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: from and what she became.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Tell us about that well.
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  Speaker 2: Amina was born in nineteen thirty nine in Jordan into
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I mean absolute aristocracy. Her father was a major jeweler,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: her uncle a general in the royal court. Wow, real privilege,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: deeply privileged, spoke four languages. But despite all this wealth,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: this status, she had this profound resentment bubbling underneath, a
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: real burning resentment for her own.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Culture, a cynicism towards Arab society.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It's traditions exactly, a deep cynicism.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Which looking back, kind of positioned her perfectly for betrayal,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: didn't it. But here's where we need to pause. I
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: think the motive. It seems this wasn't initially ideological. Was
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: it not about politics or borders in the usual sense.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: No, not really. Our understanding is that this was intensely personal, destructively.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: So the fuse wasn't lit by some grand geopolitical event.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It was lit by a breakup.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: A teenage breakup pretty much.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Her real breaking point came when she was a teenager. Yeah,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: she was deeply in love with a Palestinian named Bassam,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: but he was seen as financially well beneath her family.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Ah, the classic story, right.
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  Speaker 2: And when he ended things the letter he sent it
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: wasn't just a good bynoe. It was basically an indictment.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: He called her selfish too liberated, said he was moving
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: on with someone more traditional, more reserved.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Ouch.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, rejection, that specific adolescent rejection, seems to have been
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the singular bitter fuel. It powered, you know, a decade
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: of calculated, deadly espionage.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So nineteen she channels this betrayal into an escape. Nineteen
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: fifty eight, she convinces her family send me to Vienna
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: to study, which wasn't uncommon for affluent families then.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: No, perfectly normal, but for Amina this was pure liberation.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: She just dives headfirst into this unsupervised European life, shares
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: an apartment with a South African student, Julie Patrick, embraces
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: this whole open social scene, what some sources called deviant relationships.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: She comes back to Jordan briefly right in sixty one,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: with a bachelor's in psychiatry.
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  Speaker 2: She does, and of course the first thing she does
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: is look up Bossom, only to find out he's married
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to that reserved girl he meant yet Bloh absolutely crushing.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: So she quickly gets permission to go back to Vienna
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: for a doctor at this time, but really she had
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: no intention of ever coming back home for good.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And in Vienna she needs money purpose takes a job
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: in a toy workshop.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Seems a bit random, it does, but that's where she
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: meets Sarah Barratt, a Jewish woman, and crucially through Sarah,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: she meets her brother Mosha, handsome captain military pilot.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, things are starting to connect.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Here they are. This relationship with Mosha deepens fast, and
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: here's where it gets interesting from an operational perspective. Over
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: the next five years, Mosha uses his connections. You don't
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: know exactly how, but he helps her get a fake
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: PhD in psychiatry.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: A fake PhD.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you see this wasn't just a piece of paper.
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  Speaker 2: It was the perfect disguise. It gave her a respectability,
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  Speaker 2: instant access to sensitive places like hospitals, refugee camps later on,
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  Speaker 2: and it equipped her with psychological insights for manipulation, for recruitment.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So she takes this fake diploma back to Jordan in
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Wants to start a private hospital right but the Jordanian
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: health authorities in Aman they get suspicious the papers don't
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: quite look right. They demand she get renewed accreditation from Vienna.
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  Speaker 2: Panic stations, total panic, fear of exposure. She flees Jordan again.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: This is nineteen sixty seven, right after the Six Day War.
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  Speaker 2: The NAXA and the sources describe her feeling this schodenfreud,
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  Speaker 2: a grim satisfaction over the Arab defeat. She was ready to.
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  Speaker 1: Cut all ties, which brings us to the next big step,
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  Speaker 1: the commitment.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, Mosha proposes marriage, but there are conditions, big ones.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: She has to convert to Judaism Mary in a synagogue
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  Speaker 2: following Jewish.
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  Speaker 1: Customs, and she agrees.
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  Speaker 2: She agrees, changes her religion, changes her name to Annie Mobard.
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  Speaker 1: But the consequence of this, yeah, converting marrying an Israeli
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  Speaker 1: pilot must have been constant fear right living in Vienna,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: always looking noversal.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Absolutely, perpetual crippling fear, her family finding out Arab intelligence.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Finding out that fear becomes the driver for her next move,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: which was nineteen seventy two. She spots an advertisement the
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Israeli Defense Forces the IDF are looking for Jewish volunteers
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: offering good salaries. She convinces Mosha, who was apparent reluccant
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: at first, that moving to Israel is their only path
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  Speaker 2: to real safety.
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  Speaker 1: So they emigrate and she gets interviewed by Israeli security
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  Speaker 1: agencies upon arrival. Her audition essentially.
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  Speaker 2: And she nails it, absolutely nails it. Details her elite background,
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  Speaker 2: her family connections. But the clincher she declares this intense
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  Speaker 2: seemingly sincere hatred for Arabs, rejects the Palestinian cause completely.
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  Speaker 2: They buy it instantly. She's deemed trustworthy, a high value
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  Speaker 2: asset right off the bat and Mosha. He gets quickly
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: promoted to a major pilot in the Israeli Air.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Force, so they have safety, the promotion, the new life they.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Wanted for about a year, it doesn't last. Nineteen seventy three,
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  Speaker 2: Mosha is flying a reconnaissance mission over the Syrian Front.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: He's shot down by Syrian artillery, declared missing.
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  Speaker 1: The devastating for us completely.
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  Speaker 2: She shattered, refuses to accept he's dead, and that motive,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: that initial bitterness from the teenage rejection, it transforms. It
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: becomes this white hot need for vengeance.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And she tries to find in herself.
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  Speaker 2: She does. Later, Convinced he's alive somehow, a prisoner, she
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: persuades Israeli authorities to let her travel to Beirut Damascus
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: to look for information.
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  Speaker 1: How does she even manage that?
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  Speaker 2: Cleverly uses her Israeli passport to fly to Vienna, then
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: switches to her Jordanian passport to get into Beirut, but
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: her search confirms the worst. He's dead.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: She returns to Vienna and someone was waiting.
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  Speaker 2: Three Mussad officers. The offer is immediate and huge, five
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  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars, a secure apartment in Vienna, full security guarantees,
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  Speaker 2: all in exchange for her cooperation.
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  Speaker 1: They saw her potential.
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  Speaker 2: Instantly, a stateless woman, fearful Arab by birth, Jewish by conversion,
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  Speaker 2: impeccable connections back in Jordan, and fueled by this perfect
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  Speaker 2: burning hatred. They called her a treasure.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, but let's push back on this motive again. Half
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: a million dollars in the early seventies, that's enormous. How
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: much is it really about Mosh's death or the teenage
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: slide at this point, and how much is it just
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: she's found a very lucrative pathway to channel this resentment
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: she already had and maybe build a new identity.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: That's a really crucial question. The money was undoubtedly a
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: huge factor, gave her stability a future, but the hatred,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: whether for Bassam, for Arab society or now focused on
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: those who killed Mosha, that made her incredibly effective, driven
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: intensely a month in Vienna espionage one oh one, but
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: advanced high level photography, encryption, memory techniques, faces numbers, basic weapons,
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  Speaker 2: avoiding surveillance and because of that personal drive, that hatred
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  Speaker 2: she absorbed at all incredibly quickly, faster than most recruits. Probably.
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  Speaker 1: First assignment Beirut, gather intel on Palestinian organizations, resistance leaders.
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  Speaker 2: Right, and she doesn't just join an existing network, she
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  Speaker 2: has to build one using her money. That sophisticated European facade.
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  Speaker 2: She projects to find people with weaknesses she can exploit.
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  Speaker 1: Who does she target? First?
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  Speaker 2: Starts relatively small the friends. A clothing store owner Kadisha
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  Speaker 2: Zaran uses her to get closer to others than a
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  Speaker 2: telecom employee. She leverages that connection to get to his manager,
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  Speaker 2: Maroon al Jayek, exploiting his uh appetite, says the sources,
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  Speaker 2: puss A.
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  Speaker 1: Hyek, remember that name, He's key.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely Through al Jayek, the telecom manager, she hits the
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  Speaker 2: jackpot secret phone numbers addresses of key Palestinian resistance commanders.
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  Speaker 1: Which goes straight to Masad immediately.
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  Speaker 2: And those names lend directly on assassination lists. This is
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  Speaker 2: high impact intelligence from the get go, and.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Masad pushes for more. What's the next big target?
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  Speaker 2: This shows just how valuable she'd become. Early nineteen seventy three,
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  Speaker 2: they task her with finding the secret list of Palestinian
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: intelligence agents operating in Europe.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that requires serious.
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  Speaker 2: Access, unprecedented access, the kind you'd only get inside the
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  Speaker 2: offices of Yasser Arafat himself or his intelligence chief Ali
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  Speaker 2: Hassan Salome. And here's a critical detail. At this point,
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  Speaker 2: Massad didn't even know what Salome looked like. They needed
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: a visual id badly.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So Amina needs to get closer, much closer. How does she?
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: She's smart. She changes tactics, moves to a working class
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  Speaker 2: area of Beirut near the Palestinian refugee camps. Her cover
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: that fake medical degree, shall volunteer as a doctor.
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  Speaker 1: Knowing Arafat visited the camps.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, she knew he often met with volunteers, visited the clinics.
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  Speaker 2: It was her way in that works phenomenally well. She
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: infiltrates the ranks, posing as this dedicated volunteer doctor, gains
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  Speaker 2: access to prohibited areas. She's memorizing hundreds of names, faces,
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  Speaker 2: camp layouts maps.
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  Speaker 1: She even gets into Arafat's office.
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  Speaker 2: Repeatedly under the guise of discussing medical supplies hospital needs.
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  Speaker 2: She builds a remarkable degree of trust at the highest.
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  Speaker 1: Levels, then comes in the nineteen seventy three yam Kipper war.
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  Speaker 1: Her activity must.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Have spiked massively. She secures a special security pass signed
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  Speaker 2: by Yasser Arafat himself. Think about that, a pass signed
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: by the PLO chairman, giving a Massad agent free reign.
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  Speaker 1: Incredible. What kind of intel is she sending?
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  Speaker 2: Critical wartime intelligence? Details on weapons cases, ammunition levels, troop movements,
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  Speaker 2: locations of secret training camps, information that could directly impact
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: the battlefield.
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  Speaker 1: And does she deliver the face they need? Selame?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: She does. She flies back to Tel Aviv, briefly sits
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: down with Masad sketch artists, describes Ali Hassan Salome in detail.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Finally they have his face, they know who he is,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and he goes straight to the absolute top of their
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: assassination list, the Red Prince.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: But her success makes her over confident, or maybe just slobby.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Something starts to go wrong. Masad notices inconsistencies creeping into
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: her reports, false information. It turns out a Palestinian officer
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: she'd been trying to cultivate, a man named Abu Naser,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: was suspicious he was feeding her bad intel, deliberately testing her. Possibly.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Masad gets worried. They suspect she might be compromised. They
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: order her back to Tel Aviv immediately.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: She refuses, She refuses.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Doubles down, actually intensifies her activities. She blackmails Maroon al Hayak,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: the telecom manager, forces him deeper. She even recruits Kadija's
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: zarah On the shop owner, into her network. She feels untouchable, and.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Then she makes the fatal mistake.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a bomber shootout. It was a question, a
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: seemingly innocent human question. She's meeting with Ali Hassan Salma himself,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: and she asks about his children.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Why was that so bad?
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Because Salome's marriage, the existence of his children, it was
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: a closely guarded secret. Very few people knew her asking
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: about them meant she had access to information she absolutely
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: should not have had.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: The alarm bells go off instantly.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: That single personal question triggers a full immediate investigation into
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: doctor Annie Mobard.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: What does the initial investigation find.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Ironically, it only confirms her cover story about being a
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: fraudulent doctor, which almost strangely renews trust for a moment,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: they think maybe she's just a con artist, not.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: A spy, But then something else comes in.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, a secret tip arrives from contacts in Europe. A
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: rumor about a dead Jewish Austrian woman linked to her
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Israeli pilot breather the Mosha who had married an Arab
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: doctor who then went to Lebanon. Connecting the does exactly
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: all the pieces click into place. There were four female
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: volunteer doctors who vaguely fit this description. All four are
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: placed under intense surveillance.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Minimust has sensed it.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: She did. The net was closing in. Masad frantically orders
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: her to flee, get out immediately, but it's too late.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Palestinian intelligence arrests her.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Do they find anything incriminating in her apartment? Nothing?
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Her Beyroot apartment is clean, She destroyed all evidence of
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: her activities there. Tradecraft was good, but the diary, Ah,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the diary that's the bombshell. Back in her Vienna apartment,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: authorities uncover a six hundred page handwritten a diary detailing
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: everything her entire espionage career, names, dates, operations, motivations, everything.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So they have her cold, but she doesn't break easily
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: in interrogation.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Not at all. She's held in solitary underground. Remember that
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: opening scene. The use psychological warfare. They even show her
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: a fabricated newspaper article page picture of Mosha claiming he's alive,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: released from Syrian captivity.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: How does she react?
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: She's apparently delighted, overjoyed, but she stays silent for nine days,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: using all her psychiatric training to counter their methods to resist.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And when they confront her with the diary her own.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Words, she plays her final card, leverages that psychiatric training,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: brilliantly claims she's mentally ill, delusional, schizophrenic, the diary just
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: the writings of a disturbed mind. She argues. It's not
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: enough to convict her, not reliable enough to expose her.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Network, and incredibly, it almost works.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: It almost does. Things get complicated. Lebanese authorities actually intervene,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: citing weak evidence based on her defense, they push for
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: her release. Palestinian intelligence manages to secure just three final
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: days of questioning.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Three days to break her. What do they do?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: They know physical force won't work, They can't torture a
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: confession out of her that will hold up or reveal
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: useful intel, so they go for the ultimate psychological blow.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: They I don't just try to break her loyalty to Israel.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: They destroy her entire perceived reality. They convince her systematically,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: perhaps with fabricated evidence or testimony, that Mosha hadn't just
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: died fighting for Israel, that Mosha had been a Masad
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: agent all along, that his entire relationship with her, maybe
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: even his recruitment help with the fake PhD, was part
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: of a long term massade operation specifically designed to recruit her.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, so that the foundation of her vengeance
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: his death was itself built on a lie, a lie
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: designed to manipulate her from the start.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: That's what they made her believe. That final devastating betrayal,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the idea that the man whose death fueled her entire
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: espionage career was actually her original handler. Yeah, that's what
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: finally broke her. She collapses, completely confesses everything, every detail
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: marinell Haya Kadijazar on the entire network she built, immediately
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: arrested based on her confession.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: What happens to Amina?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Then she's held secretly under tight security for several years
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: until nineteen eighty. Then she's part of a prisoner change
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: in Greece, swapped for two Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: She goes back to Tel Aviv, Masad pays up.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: They do compensated heavily, a large sum of money, a
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: house by the sea, but her life is empty. Her
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: family and Jordan had completely disowned her years ago. She
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: has no purpose, left, no real connection. She lives alone, isolated,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: sources say, profoundly depressed.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: So when we step back, what does this whole saga
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: really tell us? What's the takeaway?
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: For me? It's the sheer, terrifying power of personal bitterness,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: of psychological damage being weaponized on a geopolitical scale. Her
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: entire decade long career as a high level spy, causing deaths,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: leaking catastrophic intelligence. It was all ultimately enabled, perhaps even engineered,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: by external forces who simply saw an opportunity in the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: pain of a single teenage rejection letter.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Amplified later by grief and vengeance. Sure yeah, but originating
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: from that initial personal wound exactly.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: And it's telling, isn't it that the accounts of how
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: her life actually ended are so conflicting No one seems
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: to know for sure.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Right, There are three main stories floating around. One she
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: changed her name, moved the United States, just disappeared into anonymity.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Two Masaud helped her again plastic surgery in nineteen eighty five,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: a new identity relocated to South Africa working in import export,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: another disappearance, and.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The third, perhaps the saddest, at.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: The psychological toll, the isolation, the realization that maybe her
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: entire adult life was a performance based on manipulation. It
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: finally overwhelmed her that she committed suicide in the psychiatric
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: ward of Telhashchomer Hospital near Tel Aviv.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Three possible endings, all speaking to a life ultimately consumed
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: by its own secrets and betrayals, which leaves you the
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: listener with a question. I think was Amina al Mufti
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: an ideologically driven spy, a master manipulator in her own right,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: or was she fundamentally just a broken woman, expertly molded
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: by others, seeking a kind of fatal validation through revenge