Mossad’s Fatal Error: Moroccan Musician Recalls Brother’s 1973 Mistaken Assassination in Norway

It all started with an investigation conducted by the Mossad in Norway to find one of the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics attacks in Germany in 1972. In total, 11 Israeli athletes had been killed by Palestinians, under the name Black September. The Israeli secret services come across a lead, Ali Hassan Salameh, who would be, according to them, the mastermind of the attack. Without further investigation, they kill by mistake in 1973 Ahmed - Chico’s brother - in front of his Norwegian wife.

"He was killed at 30, in front of her eyes, coming back from the cinema. She was pregnant," the former Gipsy Kings member tells Le Parisien. He learned the sad news in Saint-Tropez, where he was playing with the Reyes brothers. "We never talked about it in the family," confides the musician. "The King of Morocco had Ahmed’s body repatriated. We never received any apologies from Israel." The death of this elder "meant everything" to him and marked him for life. Ahmed "gave him his first guitar, introduced him to jazz, classical, flamenco."

Over the years, Chico was able to forgive during the celebration of the first anniversary of the Oslo Accords in 1994. His former group Gipsy Kings and his brother Bobby, a photographer, had left Paris for Oslo, where they performed. On this occasion, Bobby had immortalized the event by taking a photo of Chico shaking hands with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, and Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister. "Except for my brother and me, no one knew our story. I had goosebumps. It was an unforgettable moment. This photo is the image of forgiveness."