'Prisoner X'

This is big news in Australia, and in Israel, at the moment

'Prisoner X' took part in Mossad operation of killing Hamas operative in Dubai?

RT,

14 Febraury, 2013

Another layer has been added to Israel’s ‘Prisoner X’ spy story, as new details shed light on Ben Zygier’s dealings with Mossad. An Israeli lawyer says the man – who took his own life in a jail cell – did not seem like he was at risk of suicide.

Zygier’s associations with Mossad are still cloudy, as media agencies report different accounts of his previous work with the organization.

According to Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida, Zygier reportedly took part in the 2010 killing of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mahbouh in Dubai and offered the government information about the operation in return for the United Arab Emirates’ protection.  

Australia’s Fairfax Media reports that Australian security officials suspected Zygier may have been about to disclose Israeli intelligence operations – including the use of fraudulent Australian passports – to the Australian government or the media.

The Israeli government has not confirmed or denied Zygier’s association with Mossad. However, Zygier himself reportedly confided in at least two friends that he had been recruited by Mossad.

“He told me he’d just been recruited,” a friend close to Zygier told Haaretz. “I was in shock. It’s the sort of thing people usually joke about but I had no reason to doubt him at all.”

Zygier’s suicide has shed light on Mossad’s recruitment of foreign-born Jews who could spy under cover on their native passports.

Mossad has come under criticism many times for using the passports and identities of citizens of foreign countries. And despite repeated promises to stop the practices, it seems the organization is refusing to change its ways.  

Just one year ago, The Times of London published two accounts of young men who had emigrated to Israel from Britain and France. During their IDF service, both men were approached by a woman who identified herself as a Mossad official who asked the gentlemen to “lend” their passports for about 18 months while they were still in the army. Once the men reclaimed their passports, they contained stamps from countries including Russia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, Haaretz reports.

Australian newspapers lead their front pages in Australia on February 14, 2013, with the story of Ben Zygier as Israel confirms it jailed a foreigner in solitary confinement on security grounds who later committed suicide, with Australia admitting it knew one of its citizens had been detained (AFP Photo / William West)

Suspicions from Australia

Zygier was one of at least three Australian-Israeli citizens under investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization over suspicions of espionage for Israel, according to Australian media.

Canberra complained to Tel Aviv in 2010 after Dubai said forged Australian passports were used by the Mossad team. Mahbouh’s killers also had British, Irish, French, and German passports, according to authorities in the United Arab Emirates.

In at least seven cases, it turned out that the passports belonged to Jews who had emigrated to Israel from Britain and Germany. These people were unaware that their identities were being used by Mossad officials in Dubai, Haaretz reported. The identities of at least three Australians had also been used.

More questions than answers

While media agencies report that Prisoner X was, in fact, 34-year-old Ben Zygier, the Israeli government has failed to mention Zygier by name – stating only that a man with dual citizenship was held under a false name for “security reasons.”

Attorney Avigdor Feldman, who met with Zygier a day before he committed suicide, said this very fact raised a red flag.

“I saw this as something inappropriate but I did not take legal measures, based on the assumption that he was in the good hands of the lawyers who were representing him,” he told Channel 10 Television.  

Fedman said Zygier was charged with “grave crimes” and that there were ongoing negotiations for a plea bargain. He did not elaborate as to which “crimes” Zygier had allegedly committed, but said “his status was ‘detained until the completion of proceedings,'” Haaretz reported.

“His interrogators told him he could expect lengthy jail-time and be ostracized from his family and the Jewish community,” Feldman said. “There was no heart string they did not pull, and I suppose that ultimately brought about the tragic end.”

But despite Zygier’s situation, Feldman did not believe Zygier was at risk of taking his own life.

“To my mind, he sounded rational and focused and he spoke to the point. He did not display any special feeling of self-pity”, he said.

The headstone of Ben Zygier is photographed in the Chevra Kadisha Jewish Cemetery, in Melbourne on February 14, 2013 (AFP Photo / Martin Philbey)

The attorney was hired by the prisoner’s family to help negotiate a plea bargain. During their meeting, Zygier maintained his innocence to Feldman, but was anxious about the trial.

“He was facing a judiciary crossroads and he asked me to give my opinion about his decision as well…he had been informed that he could very likely expect to be sentenced to an extremely lengthy prison term and to be shunned by his family – and this affects a person’s soul," said the attorney.

Feldman remains critical of how the authorities handled Zygier’s detention. “Those responsible for him should have taken clear steps to watch over him, especially because he was far from the public eye. The end of the affair is something that needs to be investigated.”

Yet, an Israeli court maintains that no rights were broken during the detention.

"The proceedings on the matter were followed by the most senior Justice Ministry officials and the prisoners' individual rights were kept, subject to the provisions set by law," the Israeli court statement said.

However, Israel's Justice Ministry says a court has ordered an inquiry into possible negligence in Zygier's death.

The fresh details come after the Israeli government eased a gag order relating to the case. It was lifted after activists, journalists, and politicians protested the order which prevented journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) from reporting about Zygier.

The top-secret case has raised more questions than answers. Australia and Israel must now try to determine what circumstances caused 34-year-old Zygier to move to Israel, supposedly be recruited by Mossad, find himself detained in 2010, jailed secretly for months, and, uiltimately, take his own life.

Despite the new information, no concrete answers have been given by the Israeli government regarding why Zygier was detained, whether he was working for Mossad, or why he resorted to suicide. And of course the question on everyone’s minds remains: Why is it all such a big secret?

A view of Israeli Ayalon prison in Ramle near Tel Aviv (AFP Photo / Jack Guez).

Zygier 'close to spilling on Israel'

the Age,

15 Febraury, 2013

AUSTRALIAN security officials suspect that Ben Zygier, the spy who died in secret in an Israeli prison cell in 2010, may have been about to disclose information about Israeli intelligence operations, including the use of fraudulent Australian passports, either to the Australian government or to the media before he was arrested.

''[Zygier] may well have been about to blow the whistle, but he never got the chance,'' an Australian security official with knowledge of the case told Fairfax Media yesterday.

Sources in Canberra are insistent that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was not informed by its Israeli counterparts of the precise nature of the espionage allegations against Mr Zygier. However, it is understood that the former Melbourne law graduate had been in contact with Australian intelligence

He was in contact the day before he died with human rights lawyer Avigdor Feldman, who said last night: ''When I saw him, there was nothing to indicate he was going to commit suicide'', adding that he was rational, focused and without self-pity.

Mr Feldman said he was surprised ''that a man who was being held in a cell like that, a cell which was being monitored and checked 24-hours a day, could manage to commit suicide by hanging himself.''

''I understood that he was told he was likely to face the longest possible jail term and that he was likely to be ostracised by his family,'' he said.

Israeli intelligence informed ASIO of Mr Zygier's arrest and detention just eight days after authorities in Dubai revealed that suspected Israeli agents had used fraudulent Australian passports in the assassination of a Palestinian militant leader.

The subsequent crisis in Australian-Israeli intelligence relations provided the context in which the Australian diplomats did not seek access to Mr Zygier, who was regarded by Australian security officials as being a potential whistleblower on Israeli intelligence operations.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) on Wednesday revealed that the Australian government first learnt of Mr Zygier's detention through ''intelligence channels'' on February 24, 2010.

''The Australian government was informed in February 2010 through intelligence channels that the Israeli authorities had detained a dual Australian-Israeli citizen - and they provided the name of the citizen - in relation to serious offences under Israeli national security legislation,'' Senator Carr told a Senate hearing.

Fairfax Media has been told by security sources that ASIO's liaison office in Tel Aviv was notified of Mr Zygier's detention by the Israeli domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet. It is understood that ASIO promptly notified the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade including the Australian ambassador to Israel, Andrea Faulkner.

An interim report to Senator Carr has reportedly advised that Australian intelligence agencies told DFAT officials about Mr Zygier's detention shortly after his arrest in February 2010. However, officials were unclear whether then foreign minister Stephen Smith was briefed.

Senator Carr's office declined to respond when asked about the government's precise knowledge of Israeli allegations about Mr Zygier.

As no request for consular assistance was made by Mr Zygier or his family, the matter was left to be dealt with through intelligence channels. No consular contact was made with Mr Zygier. It became involved on his death in December 2010.

Mr Zygier's detention came at an increasingly tense time in Australian-Israeli relations.

On February 16, 2010, Dubai authorities publicly revealed that suspected Israeli agents had used Western passports in the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the United Arab Emirates.

News of the Israeli passport fraud brought a strong reaction from then prime minister Kevin Rudd.

On February 25, according to a United States diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, DFAT told the US embassy in Canberra that ''Australian officials are 'furious' all the way up the chain of command over the incident''. Mr Smith called a press conference to announce that he had summoned Israel's ambassador for an explanation.

On February 27, three days after the Australian government learned of Mr Zygier's detention, Fairfax Media reported that at least three Australian-Israeli dual citizens had been under investigation by ASIO in relation to alleged Israeli espionage activity while using Australian passports.

One of those people, not named by Fairfax Media at the time, was Mr Zygier. It was not suggested that the Australians under investigation were linked to the events in Dubai.

Australia's embassy in Tel Aviv had already complained to Israeli authorities about the passport abuse.

Australian Federal Police investigators subsequently travelled to Israel to pursue the Dubai passport fraud case, and that was followed by a visit to Tel Aviv by ASIO Director-General David Irvine, who met Israeli intelligence chiefs. Mr Irvine subsequently provided a classified report to the government on the issue.

However, security sources have told Fairfax Media that the ASIO chief did not raise the case of Mr Zygier.

Senator Carr yesterday told a Senate hearing that the Australian government sought ''specific assurances'' that Mr Zygier's legal rights would be respected and that ''the Israeli government responded that the individual would be treated in accordance with his lawful rights as an Israeli citizen. The government relied on these assurances.'' DFAT yesterday declined to provide details of these exchanges.

On May 24, 2010, Mr Smith told Federal Parliament that the Australian government was ''in no doubt that Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of [Australian] passports'' in Dubai and announced that a senior unnamed Israeli diplomat was being expelled.

The expelled diplomat, given one week to leave Australia was Israeli Embassy counsellor Eli Elkoubi, an officer of the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad. Israeli diplomats complained privately after Mr Elkoubi's name and status as an intelligence officer was published in The Canberra Times in June 2010. Although the Australian government did not deliberately reveal Mr Elkoubi's status as a Mossad officer, the Israelis believed the disclosure was a further act of retaliation.

Security sources have told Fairfax Media that the consequent freeze of Australian-Israeli intelligence co-operation meant that Zygier's case wasn't pursued further by either ASIO or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade before his death while in secret detention in December 2010.

Israel Ambassador Yuval Rotem refused to comment on the issue on Thursday. ''When I can, I shall let you know,'' Mr Rotem said.

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