Missing IAF navigator Ron Arad in captivity in 1986
A defendant in a Lebanese military tribunal, which is hearing the case of five nationals arrested for alleged collaboration with Mossad, has claimed that IAF navigator Ron Arad was tortured and killed in 1988. Arad went missing in 1986 after he aborted his plane over southern Lebanon and was captured. The Israeli government never officially declared Arad dead and attempted to engage Arab and Lebanese parties in possible prisoner swaps for his release with Jewish groups around the world offering monetary rewards for information that led to his freedom. Maufid Kuntar, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, claims that the organization had taken a prisoner he believes was Arad, and that he was later found dead in a bathroom after he had been tortured and beaten for information.
