Luttif Afif

Luttif Afif (1937 or 1945 - 6 September 1972), alias Issa (Jesus in Arabic), was the commander of the group of Palestinian fedayeen, who led the invasion into the Munich Olympic Village on 5 September 1972 and took as hostage nine members of Israel's Olympic team after killing two members who resisted. He was the chief negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians, who were members of the Black September offshoot of Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. The various pictures of Afif, wearing a white beach hat and a linen safari suit and his face covered with charcoal or shoe polish are some of the iconic images of the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Luttif Afif's mother was Jewish, while his father was a wealthy Christian Arab businessman from Nazareth. Afif had three other brothers, all were in Black September, two of whom were in Israeli jails. In 1958 he moved to West Germany to study engineering, learned the language and then moved to France to work. According to Reeve, he enjoyed the time spent in Europe, but joined Fatah in 1966, possibly while residing in Germany. Issa returned to the Middle East to fight several battles against Israeli soldiers. Abu Iyad, the head of Black September, wrote that both Afif and his second in command Tony had both fought in Amman in September 1970 and in the battle of Jerash and Ajlun in July 1971. In the early 1970s however, he was living in Berlin and was engaged to a young German woman.

According to several sources, including Serge Groussard and Simon Reeve, Afif claimed that his own personal reason for taking the Israelis hostage was to get his two brothers out of Israeli prisons. Afif was described by Manfred Schreiber, chief of the Munich police and one of the German negotiators, as "very cool and determined, clearly fanatical in his convictions" who expressed his demands in a forceful manner and at times "sounded like [one of] those people who aren't completely anchored in reality."

For Walther Tröger, then-Mayor of the Olympic Village, Afif gave the impression of being an "intelligent and reasonable man," unlike his comrades, who in the eyes of the Olympic official were "gallow birds" (German: Galgenvögel). Tröger said of course he didn't like him because of what he was doing, but he could have liked him if he had met him elsewhere.

Afif spent most of his time in front of 31 Connollystraße chatting with either the German delegation or the young policewoman Anneliese Graes. According to Graes, Afif spoke fluent German with a French accent. She described him as "always polite and correct." When he was asked not to wave his hand grenade in front of her, he simply laughed and replied, "you have nothing to fear from me". Graes also found the terrorist leader more peculiar. He explained how he had worked in the Olympic Village 'Milk Bar' and had enjoyed dancing around in front of the bar, though Graes didn't believe him. Afif told Graes he had worked in France for several years and every now and again would drop the phrase "oo-la-la" into their conversations.

After tense negotiations, the hostage crisis ended after 21 hours with a bungled ambush of the hostage takers at Fürstenfeldbruck airbase outside of Munich. Afif and four of his compatriots were killed by German snipers, but not before machine-gunning all nine remaining hostages and blowing up a helicopter containing four of them with a hand grenade. Afif is reported in most accounts of the event (and depicted in the films Munich and 21 Hours at Munich) as the guerrilla who threw the hand grenade into the eastern helicopter. Autopsy reports show that the hostages in this helicopter were shot as well; it stands to reason that Afif performed both actions. Another fedayeen, Simon Reeve identifies Adnan Al-Gashey, then machine-gunned the remaining hostages in the western helicopter seconds after.

The bodies of Afif and his four compatriots were turned over to Libya, and after a procession from Tripoli's Martyrs' Square, were buried in the Sidi Munaidess Cemetery.

In Serge Groussard's The Blood of Israel, Issa was misidentified as Mohammed Safady, one of the Munich gunmen who actually survived the Fürstenfeldbruck gunfight. Another identity was suggested for Issa in Aaron Klein's Striking Back; he identifies the terrorist leader as Mohammed Massalha, who turned out to be Afif's own father.

Afif has been portrayed by Franco Nero in the 1976 TV movie 21 Hours at Munich, and by French actor Karim Saleh in Steven Spielberg's film Munich (2005).