Israel's 'Prisoner X' was Australian Mossad agent, documentary claims

[Magda Hassan]

Jason Katsoukis's investigation into Ben Zygier, aka "Prisoner X," who was said to have committed suicide in Ayalon Prison in 2010, began in 2009, when an anonymous source fed the Australian Fairfax reporter information regarding a Mossad front company operating in Europe and selling goods to Iran, the Guardian reported Wednesday evening.
According to the report, the source gave Katsoukis the names of three Australians with joint Israeli citizenship who were working for the Mossad. The alleged agents were said to be selling electronics to Iran through a company based in Europe.
In 2009, Katsoukis said, he contacted Zygier at his home in Jerusalem and confronted him with allegations of the story.
"The company did exist," Katsoukis was quoted as saying. "I also managed to establish that Zygier and another of the individuals had worked for it. I wasn't able to confirm the third name."
According to Katsoukis's account, Zygier changed his name four times in Australia. Australian authorities, Katsoukis said, were becoming suspicious and were beginning to close in on Zygier.
After the 2010 Mossad hit squad killed senior Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, Katasoukis decided to confront Zygier and called him, the report said.
"When I spoke to him he was incredulous at first and said fuck off but what was interesting was that he did not hang up," he said. "He did soundly genuinely shocked. But he listened to what I had to say.
"I still wonder why he didn't hang up. He denied everything however. He said he hadn't visited the countries it had been claimed he had. I tried calling again but in the end he told me to buzz off."
Katsoukis said he had a series of bizarre exchanges with the CEO of the alleged front company.
"He seemed a bit weird. He denied all knowledge of what I was talking about, but then wanted to talk to me again and make an arrangement to meet up," he said.
Katsoukis claimed that a senior government official later confirmed the story, even though he had the opportunity to refute it.
Zygier was apparently imprisoned later that year.
Fairfax eventually excluded news of the front company from its report on the three Australian citizens who had allegedly been spying for Israel. In his interview with the Guardian, Katsoukis did not say why that information didn't make it to press.
An Israeli report Wednesday said the Australian security services had "burned" Zygier by leaking the story to an Australian journalist. The report didn't divulge whether the journalist in question was Katsoukis.
Israel on Wednesday night confirmed that a suicide of a security prisoner occurred at the prison in late 2010, and ordered an investigation into possible negligence by the prison authorities.
Zygier was 34 when he died. His remains were sent to Melbourne for burial shortly afterward.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/zygier-work...with-iran/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jason Katsoukis's investigation into Ben Zygier, aka "Prisoner X," who was said to have committed suicide in Ayalon Prison in 2010, began in 2009, when an anonymous source fed the Australian Fairfax reporter information regarding a Mossad front company operating in Europe and selling goods to Iran, the Guardian reported Wednesday evening.
According to the report, the source gave Katsoukis the names of three Australians with joint Israeli citizenship who were working for the Mossad. The alleged agents were said to be selling electronics to Iran through a company based in Europe.

"Electronics" are quite possibly cover for more exotic contrabrand, such as nuclear technology.

So perhaps my option 2:

A senior Israeli intelligence official, who remained anonymous, told Australian TV that if what Ben Zygier did and knew were made public, it would pose an immediate threat to Israel as a nation state.

OK - let's indulge in some speculative thinking.


Q: If Prisoner X was selling chemical, biological or nuclear technology to an Arab state or "terror organisation", would disclosure of this crime pose an immediate threat to the Israeli state?

A: Yes.

[Magda Hassan]

Avigdor Feldman is Mordachai Vanunu's lawyer as well.

THE family of Australian man Ben Zygier, the Mossad officer who hanged himself after being detained by Israeli authorities on national security grounds, were never told the nature of the accusations against him. Zygier's Israeli lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, said the 34-year-old maintained his innocence, but was considering a plea bargain in the lead-up to his death. Mr Feldman, one of the last people to see Zygier alive, would not detail the specific charge but said last night it was "not on the high level of gravity".

Asked about reports in Israel that Zygier was accused of "treason", Mr Feldman said: "I can't go into specifics but treason doesn't have to be somebody who is in coalition with Hezbollah or any other enemy of Israel."
The Australian understands Zygier's family received very little information about his case, which began in February 2010 when he was arrested on suspicion of committing what Foreign Minister Bob Carr described yesterday as "serious offences" under Israel's national security legislation.

His detention was kept a secret well after his death in December 2010 until the ABC's Foreign Correspondent this week revealed Zygier a father of two who had moved to Israel from Melbourne, where he studied as a lawyer 10 years earlier was the secret prisoner known as "Prisoner X".
It is understood Zygier's family are satisfied that his rights were attended to at all times by Israeli authorities.
They do not harbour any doubt about the verdict of an Israeli investigation into Zygier's death, which found the former lawyer had hanged himself in a cell supposed to be under constant surveillance.
Mr Feldman visited the high-security cell at the prison in Israel in the days before his death to discuss whether he should accept a plea bargain and face a shorter prison sentence or contest the charges, face a trial and risk a longer sentence.
He described the treatment of Zygier as "stupid, inhumane and repulsive."
It is understood that, in the period leading up to his death, Zygier was known to be struggling psychologically.
Asked how Zygier appeared, Mr Feldman said there were no obvious signs of depression but that from his experience months of solitary confinement would most likely have been weighing on him.
"He certainly said the way he was being treated was extremely unfair," Mr Feldman said.
Australia's domestic spy agency ASIO was notified in February 2010 that Zygier, who was a dual Israeli-Australian national and a target in one of its investigations, had been detained.
It is understood the agency harboured no concerns that the former Melbourne man was involved in espionage in Australia. Rather, Zygier was being investigated along with a number of dual Israeli-Australian citizens over suspected links to Mossad.
A source familiar with the investigation said the probe focused on Mossad's practice of recruiting dual citizens.
"(Zygier) was not a risk here," a source said. "In terms of what was going on, it was overseas."
Asked whether Zygier had compromised the security of Israel by the alleged "treason", Mr Feldman said: "I can't go into specifics but treason doesn't have to be somebody who is in coalition with Hezbollah or any other enemy of Israel."
Mr Feldman said his client "claimed before me he had done nothing wrong".
"But he was also claiming that the level of evidence in security cases was extremely low," he said.
"Even if you didn't do anything much, you can find yourself in trouble in the courts."
Mr Feldman would not detail the specific charge against Zygier or any security details, citing a secrecy agreement he had signed. But he said his impression of Zygier was that he was "someone who was not a traitor by nature or ideology".
"He was involved in something that I cannot go into but this concern does not threaten the security or the government of Israel," he said.
Senator Carr confirmed yesterday that Australia had sought assurances from Israel over the safety of Zygier when he was first detained in an Israeli prison in February 2010.
But he said at no point did Zygier or his family seek consular assistance from Australian officials during his imprisonment.
Speaking to a parliamentary committee, Senator Carr said yesterday he had received an interim report from his department after it was asked to inquire urgently about Zygier and what Australia knew about his detainment. A fuller version is expected within a few days.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Peter Varghese said Australia's embassy in Tel Aviv was not informed about Zygier's detention, but assurances on Zygier's welfare were sought through intelligence officials on the ground.
Earlier this week, Senator Carr said he had no knowledge of Zygier's case. Yesterday he clarified, saying his department was informed of Zygier's death on December 16, 2010.
A spokesman for the minister said the government had not approached Israeli for details about the case, saying the first step was to establish what was known to Australian officials in 2010. A family friend of Zygier, Henry Greener, said yesterday said he had known Zygier for many years.
He said reports that Zygier had joined Mossad were not in keeping with the young man he had known. "He wasn't tough and hard like you imagine the Mossad guys to be," Mr Greener said. "He didn't have it in him."
Zygier had been a brilliant student who had breezed through his legal studies before going off to Israel to do a stint in the Israeli armed forces.
Mr Greener said the family had been devastated by Zygier's death. Zygier's father had retired from his role at the Jewish Community Council of Victoria soon after the funeral and had returned to work as executive director of the B'Nai B'Rith Anti-Defamation Commission only in the past six months.
Additional reporting: Adam Shand, Lanai Scarr

[Magda Hassan]

Zygier 'planned to expose deadly use of passports'

Date February 15, 2013

Philip Dorling

Zygier's spy denial 'very convincing'

Speaking to Lateline, former Fairfax correspondent Jason Koutsoukis recalls his conversations with Ben Zygier, the last of which was just weeks before he was imprisoned in Israel.


Security officials suspect that Ben Zygier, the alleged spy who died in a secret Israeli prison 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.
Mr Zygier ''may well have been about to blow the whistle, but he never got the chance'', an Australian security official told Fairfax Media.
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 Melbourne law graduate had been in contact with Australian intelligence officers.
Ayalon prison ... Zygier committed suicide in the high-security Israeli jail in 2010 after being held for months in great secrecy. Photo: Reuters

Israeli intelligence informed ASIO of the arrest and detention of Mr Zygier just eight days after authorities in Dubai had revealed that suspected Israeli agents had used fraudulent Australian passports in the assassination of a Palestinian militant.
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The consequent crisis in Australian-Israeli intelligence relations provided the context in which the Australian diplomats did not seek consular access to Mr Zygier, who was regarded by Australian security officials as a potential whistleblower on Israeli intelligence operations.
The Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, on Thursday revealed that the government learnt of Mr Zygier's detention through ''intelligence channels'' on February 24, 2010. He told a Senate estimates hearing that Israel 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''.
Web of intrigue … Ben Zygier

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 security agency Shin Bet. It is understood that ASIO promptly notified the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), including the ambassador to Israel, Andrea Faulkner.
However, officials were unclear when or whether the then foreign minister, Stephen Smith, was briefed. Senator Carr's office declined to respond when asked on Thursday about the government's precise knowledge of Israeli allegations about Mr Zygier and the reasons for his secret detention. As no request for consular assistance was made by Mr Zygier or his family, the matter was left to intelligence liaison channels. No consular contact was made with Mr Zygier, and Australian diplomats did not become involved in the matter until after his reported suicide in prison in December 2010.
Mr Zygier's detention came at an increasingly tense time in Australian-Israeli relations.
Ben Zygier's grave in Melbourne. Photo: Reuters

On February 16, 2010, Dubai authorities revealed that suspected Israeli agents had used Western passports in a covert operation that resulted in the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the United Arab Emirates.
News of the Israeli passport fraud caused a strong reaction from the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd. On February 25, according to a US 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, and Prime Minister Rudd has vowed to get to the bottom of it''.
Australian Federal Police investigators 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 passport fraud issue.
However security sources have told Fairfax Media that the ASIO director-general did not raise the case of Mr Zygier.
Senator Carr told the Senate hearing that the Australian government sought ''specific assurances'' that Mr Zygier's legal rights would be respected and the government relied on these assurances. DFAT on Thursday declined to provide details of these exchanges.
On May 24, 2010, Mr Smith told Parliament that the government was ''in no doubt that Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of [Australian] passports'' in connection with the assassination of Mabhouh and announced that a senior unnamed Israeli diplomat was being expelled in response to Israeli's actions and refusal to co-operate with Australian investigations.
The diplomat, given one week to leave Australia, was 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.
Mr Zygier's father Geoffrey, executive director for B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, has declined comment.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/zygier-plann...z2KxF70yKh

[Magda Hassan]

Ben Zygier, RIP
Israel's international fifth column exposed
by Justin Raimondo, February 15, 2013
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The shocking story of Ben Zygier, a 34-year-old Australian recruited by the Mossad and quite possibly murdered in an Israeli jail cell in 2010, has exposed Israel's international fifth column to the light of day. This whale surfaces every once in a while. Remember the "passport farm" run by the Israelis in New Zealand back in 2004? Similar operations were uncovered in Australia and in Israel itself: regarding the latter, travelers to the Jewish state had their identities stolen, their passports duplicated and handed out like candy to Mossad agents. Then there were those two FBI raids on the Washington headquarters of AIPAC, the powerful Israeli lobby, during the course of which agents surrounded the building and carted out boxes of documents and computer hard drives as part of the Steve Rosen-Keith Weissman affair, in which two top AIPAC officials were indicted and tried for stealing US secrets from the Pentagon, and only had their case dropped because a trial would have revealed those secrets to the world. And who could forget that 2001 Fox News four-part series reported by Carl Cameron, which concluded there was evidence the Israelis were watching the 9/11 hijackers on American soil and failed to report their movements to US authorities?
This time, however, the story has an unusual twist. It appears that Zygier, a fervent Zionist, discovered something that caused him to turn against his Mossad bosses something so sensitive, of such importance to the Jewish state, that his incarceration in a Israel's high security Ayalon prison in a "suicide-proof" cell originally designed for Yitzhad Rabin's assassin was a closely-guarded secret. Prison personnel were not told his identity, and a media blackout was imposed shortly after the story of "Prisoner X" came out in the Israeli media. All mentions of the arrest were scrubbed from Israeli web sites.
That was two years ago. Now we learn Zygier "committed suicide" in his suicide-proof cell.
The Australians had been on his trail for a while. He and two other Australians who had emigrated to Israel and then returned after changing their names and applying for Australian passports were under investigation for engaging in espionage. An Australian journalist had questioned Zygier about his activities, and he furiously denied being involved in any covert activities on Israel's behalf. There are reports of his interrogation by ASIO, Australia's intelligence agency.
There seems little doubt Zygier was recruited by Mossad ten to twelve years ago: his friends are now recalling it. The New York Times says he used at least four names: Ben Zygier, Ben Alon, Ben Allen and Benjamin Burrows, traveling to Iran, Syria, and Lebanon on behalf of his Israeli paymasters. The nature of his transgression has yet to be definitively revealed, yet the story is coming out in spite of the Israeli government's frantic efforts to stop it. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
"Australian security officials suspect that Ben Zygier, the spy who died in a secret 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."
There is much speculation surrounding the reasons for Zygier's arrest: the most popular appears to be that he was about to reveal details of the 2010 Mossad hit job in Dubai, during which an entire team of some 20 Mossad agents succeeded in murdering an Arab arms dealer with links to Hamas.
The problem with this theory is that the facts about that case are pretty much known: the Israelis collected data from travelers to Israel and then used it to create bogus passports, which were then issued to Mossad agents. Photos of these agents appeared in the Kuwaiti media, and were published on the internet. A Kuwaiti paper is now claiming it was Zygier who turned over this information, including the photos, to the Kuwaitis, and that the Israelis kidnapped him in Kuwait. The paper quotes "a former Mossad commander" who contends Zygier was part of the Dubai assassination team until he "switched to the other side." Yet this tall tale hardly explains why the Israelis would keep the identity of "Prisoner X" such a closely-guarded secret, quashing press reports of his incarceration, and denying his very existence until now. It wouldn't explain why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an "emergency" meeting with Israeli editors over their handling of the story. And it wouldn't account for the fact that Zygier was apparently in contact with the Australian intelligence service prior to his arrest or have they, too, "switched to the other side"?
I guess it all depends on what one means by "other side." Because, from the perspective of the increasingly isolated Israeli government which cultivates a narrative of the Jewish state as besieged on every side "the other side" means everybody else, including the West.
We don't know the nature of Zygier's "crime," but we know with reasonable certainty what it was not. In all likelihood it had nothing to do with the Dubai assassination, the forging of passports, or any of the other depredations against international law and morality that we already know about. It's something new and worse.
There is some speculation it had something to do with the impersonation of CIA officers by Mossad agents who were trying to recruit Jundullah terrorists in their campaign to destabilize Iran, and this may be more credible: after all, according to the report by Mark Perry in Foreign Policy, "The Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives what is commonly referred to as a false flag' operation." (Emphasis added.)
So it isn't just Australian, New Zealand, and European passports the Israelis are stealing there's an Israeli "passport farm" churning out American passports, too. But then again, why would Zygier reportedly a committed Zionist, who had been recruited by Mossad and emigrated to Israel where he started a family threaten to expose this type of operation? It doesn't add up unless the Israelis were mounting an operation against his native Australia, or other Western countries such as the US.
Israel's Mossad is notorious for its ruthlessness, and its unwillingness to play by the rules: for example, when it comes to industrial espionage, Israel's Western "allies" are considered fair game. A GAO report on Israeli espionage in the US concluded the Jewish state "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally." Australia presumably merits the same treatment. But Zygier didn't "switch sides" because of a few stolen gadgets. It had to have been something that aroused his conscience, and perhaps reawakened long dormant loyalty to his Australian homeland or to the concept of morality itself.
This is not the Israel we once knew, or thought we knew. We are dealing here with Bibi Netanyahu's Israel, a country veering to the very edge of fundamentalist extremism, increasingly aggressive and impatient to assert itself as the dominant power in the Middle East. Their above-ground lobby is not only hyperactive, it is hyper-potent, strong enough to rule the US Congress with an iron hand as Chuck Hagel pointed out, to his sorrow and do much to push the US into a disastrous war in Iraq (as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt showed in their book on The Israel Lobby). Yet what about the clandestine aspect of this phenomenon the covert complement to Israel's overt fifth column? The Zygier affair gives us a brief, incomplete glimpse at this sinister subterranean creature, and a scary one it is.
No, we don't know why the Israelis kept "Prisoner X" locked up in absolute secrecy, and then panicked when word leaked out about his "suicide." No, we don't know for sure that he was murdered by his jailers although his lawyer, who saw him days before his death, has said he seemed rational and not at all suicidal. We can't know for certain what horror he uncovered, and caused him to rebel. Yet that horror, whatever it was, was no ordinary one: it motivated him to reject the views and actions of a lifetime, and reverse course with stunning abruptness.
Zygier was reportedly offered a plea bargain by the Israeli authorities, and turned it down because he was determined to clear his name. Was he an Israeli Bradley Manning, intent on exposing the crimes of the Jewish state crimes we can only imagine?
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/...ygier-rip/

[Jan Klimkowski]

OK - read this highly sanitised Israeli media account of a Mossad operation.

Then put your deep political Gladio hat on, and read with Eyes Wide Open.

'Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA spies to recruit terrorists to fight against Iran'

Foreign Policy magazine cites CIA memos from 2007-2008 that the Mossad recruited members of Jundallah terror group to fight against Tehran; U.S. was reportedly furious with Israel and moved to limit joint intelligence programs.

By Barak Ravid | Jan.13, 2012 | 8:54 PM | 80

Le Figaro: Israel's Mossad recruiting Iranian dissidents to work against Tehran regime
By Haaretz | Jan.13,2012 | 8:54 PM | 75
Netanyahu: International sanctions on Iran are working
By Barak Ravid | Jan.13,2012 | 8:54 PM | 14
Israeli official: Report of Mossad agents posing as CIA spies 'absolute nonsense'
By Amir Oren | Jan.13,2012 | 8:54 PM | 67

Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran, Foreign Policy revealed on Friday, quoting U.S. intelligence memos.

Foreign Policy's Mark Perry reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government, and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.

Perry quotes a number of American intelligence officials and claims that the Mossad agents used American dollars and U.S. passports to pose as CIA spies to try to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization that has carried out a series of attacks in Iran and assassinations of government officials.

According to the report, Israel's recruitment attempts took place mostly in London, right under the nose of U.S. intelligence officials.

"It's amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with," Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. "Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn't give a damn what we thought."

According to a currently serving U.S. intelligence officer, Perry reports, when Bush was briefed on the information he "went absolutely ballistic."

"The report sparked White House concerns that Israel's program was putting Americans at risk," the intelligence officer told Perry. "There's no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we're not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians."

The intelligence officer said that the Bush administration continued to deal with the affair until the end of his term. He noted that Israel's operation jeopardized the U.S. administration's fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was under immense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah.

According to the intelligence officer, a senior administration official vowed to "take the gloves off" with Israel, but ultimately the U.S. did nothing.

"In the end it was just easier to do nothing than to, you know, rock the boat," the intelligence officer said.

Apparently, the Mossad operation caused a fiery debate among Bush's national security team and it was only resolved when U.S. President Barack Obama drastically scaled back joint U.S.-Israel intelligence programs targeting Iran, Perry quotes several serving and retired officers as saying.

The U.S. State Department has vehemently denied any ties to Jundallah and many U.S. intelligence officials remained angry with Israel over the 2007-2008 operation.

"Israel is supposed to be working with us, not against us," Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. "If they want to shed blood, it would help a lot if it was their blood and not ours. You know, they're supposed to be a strategic asset. Well, guess what? There are a lot of people now, important people, who just don't think that's true."

The CIA, the White House, and the Mossad failed to respond to the Foreign Policy report by the time it went to press.

[Magda Hassan]

Israeli Intelligence Sanitized Zygier's Cell After Hanging, Family Demands Millions in Damages

by Richard Silverstein on February 15, 2013 · 11 comments
in Mideast Peace


Ben Zygier: Sacrificed on the altar of the Jewish State

The Zygier case continues to develop, sending shockwaves through both the State of Israel and its intelligence services and Australia. There are new reports from both countries that further damage the reputations of the Mossad, Shin Bet and ASIO (Australia's intelligence agency).
After maintaining a strict silence concerning their loved one's death, members of Zygier's family (not clear whether this is his wife in Israel, his parents in Australia, or both) approached the State of Israel demanding compensation for the negligent death of Ben Zygier. This occurred six weeks ago when a judge, who took eighteen months to arrive at this decision, found Zygier had died through the negligence of the intelligence and prison service. The figure bruited about is "millions of shekels." In the past, Israel has laid out million-dollar settlements to the families of British activists like James Miller and Tom Hurndall, when the British government has put the screws to Israel demanding that it pay damages for what was negligent homicide or worse.
This is an even more egregious case, in which Israel will be under tremendous pressure because of the level of damage it will do to the State's relations with Israel. I would guess the payment in the Zygier case would be far more than $1-million (4-million shekels).
Maariv, through sources in the prison service, reveals that immediately after Zygier's alleged suicide in his Ayalon prison cell, intelligence personnel in civilian garb swarmed his cell. They prohibited access to emergency services, the coroner or prison officials to perform their customary duties in such cases:

Magen David Adom was summoned in order to certify his death. As opposed to other similar cases, the police were only called later. Even then [after they arrived] they and the forensics lab personnel were not permitted to enter the cell to examine the scene. Only hours later, after officials from different security and police agencies visited the site, was the forensics team permitted to enter.
Officially, police and Shabak officers refused to acknowledge the incident. The prison service and Shabak agreed only to say that a prisoner had committed suicide in his cell. Personnel within the prison were astonished at this version and agreed that there is more unknown than known regarding the circumstances of his death.

One prison official even says the suicide story beggars belief because there are four video surveillance cameras in the cell. Zygier was imprisoned for eight months in a cell from which he was never allowed out, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It had an iron door which permitted no view of the hallway outside so he could not communicate with the outside world. The cell had only two small windowswhich permitted some fresh air to enter from the outsidea small refrigerator and hot plate.
The Maariv story concludes with this suggestive and mysterious sentence:

Once his death was established, each of the agencies and individuals [that visited the cell] was handed a table of names that were mentioned in various documents. Each agency indicated the name under which the deceased was known to it.

This indicates a high level of coordination among the various entities that might be blamed for his death. They desperately wanted to be sure to have all their ducks in a row. If this isn't an incipient cover-up, I don't know what is.
Another extraordinary aspect of the case is that it took eight days before Israel released the body for repatriation to his family in Australia. One of the most sacred aspects of Judaism demands that a body be buried immediately after death. A delay of eight days is unheard of. All of this indicates a huge level of confusion and perhaps panic among authorities in terms of deciding what to do with Zygier and the narrative of his death.
Further, there are important elements of the Maariv story that lean toward the conclusion that there may've been some form of foul play involved in his death. Even prison guards working at Ayalon have trouble accepting the "official" story. It should be mentioned that a large part of the reason this story is known at all is that these same prison personnel were stricken with conscience at the treatment afforded to Zygier. They spoke out after his death and they continue speaking now. Good for them.
Writing in the Australian Age, a reporter reveals that after his arrest Zygier received NO consular assistance from the embassy. Intelligence officers in the Australian embassy in Israel did not tell the acting ambassador at the time. They did tell the permanent ambassador who began her job a month after the arrest. But apparently Zygier was left entirely to his own devices. This is not just an embarrassing lapse, it is catastrophically embarrassing and raises the question whether this incompetence was deliberate. Were officials wanting not to know or do anything for Zygier? And if so, why?
This passage also indicates a huge diplomatic violation by Israel in the opacity with which it dealt with Australian authorities:

One of the country's top international law experts, the Australian National University's Don Rothwell, said Israel was in clear breach of international consular access conventions by failing to formally tell Australia government to government that it had arrested and jailed Zygier.

But hey, this shouldn't surprise anyone. Israel clearly believes that international law and diplomatic conventions are advisory rather than compulsory as far as its own behavior is concerned. They are useful when they benefit Israel and may be ignored when they are inconvenient. Someone ought to inform Israel that there are consequences when a nation ignores such niceties. I only hope Australia will make Israel pay for its serious violations of these provisions.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/0...r-hanging/

[Magda Hassan]

Israel arrested Ben Zygier fearing he exposed Mossad plans in Italy, ABC reports

Report indicates that Mossad handlers arrested Prisoner X upon his return from Australia due to concerns he may have shared sensitive information with agents from the ASIO.

By Barak Ravid | Feb.18, 2013 | 11:30 AM | 9

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Australian authorities were investigating Ben Zygier for espionage months before his arrest in Israel
By Anshel Pfeffer and Barak Ravid
Feb.18,2013 | 11:30 AM | 51

Report: Ben Zygier planned to expose Mossad's use of Australian passports
By Barak Ravid | Feb.18,2013 | 11:30 AM | 17

In Australia, anti-Israel rhetoric drowns out speculation over Zygier affair
By Dan Goldberg | Feb.18,2013 | 11:30 AM





Ben Zygier, the alleged Mossad agent known as Prisoner X, was arrested by his handlers in 2010 because they believed he had delivered sensitive information to Australia's domestic intelligence agency while on a visit to his native land, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday.
Zygier reportedly met a number of times with agents of the Australian Secret Intelligence Organization and shared comprehensive details with them about Mossad's operations abroad, including his own work in Australia and a long-planned secret mission in Italy, according to reporter Trevor Bormann who last week broke the story of the Prisoner X affair.
Bormann said it was not yet clear whether Zygier initiated contact with the ASIO or was summoned for investigation. Reports from the last few days indicate that Zygier was detained by the ASIO for a long period of time while he was studying for his MBA at Monash University.
The ASIO's suspicions into Zygier reportedly began after he changed his surname in his Australian passport four times. Since the beginning of this affair, various conjectures have emerged suggesting that Zygier was in fact a double agent for the Mossad and the ASIO.
Bormann's latest report claims that during Zygier's visit to Australia, long before he was arrested in 2010, he submitted a request for a work visa in Italy. According to the ABC report, Zygier together with two other Australian passport holders set up a straw company in Italy to trade communications equipment with Iran and several Arab states.
The Mossad discovered that Zygier was in contact with the ASIO and worried that he would or already had exposed to them the existence of the straw company in Italy.
The Brisbane Times last week quoted Australian security officials as saying that Zygier may have been about to supply information to the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) or the media on Mossad activities in Australia, including the spy agency's use of Australian passports. The ABC report on Monday is the first indicating that Zygier may have already passed on information to the ASIO.
Zygier was arrested by the Shin Bet security service in February 2010 and imprisoned in Ramle's Ayalon Prison, where he committed suicide in December that year, despite being in an isolation cell and under constant surveillance.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-de...m-1.504264

[Magda Hassan]

Ha! Prisoner dictates terms of imprisonment to prison administration. Non-existent prisoner then kindly became non existent to save family from embarrassment too I suppose. What a trooper! Likely story.

Ben Zygier agreed to be known as Prisoner X to protect family'

AUSTRALIAN Ben Zygier agreed to be known as "Prisoner X" to protect his family and for national security reasons, Public Security Minister Yitzak Aharonovitch told the Israeli parliamentary assembly today.



Ben Zygier agreed to be known as Prisoner X, an Israeli MP has told the Knesset.







In a summary of the case presented to MPs, Mr Aharonovitch said Zygier had all benefits of regular prisoners including access to legal and psychological services but agreed to a false name for privacy and security reasons.
He said Zygier had also agreed to the gag order on all aspects of his case, a decision upheld by the supreme court.
"Let me say clearly there are no anonymous prisoners in Israel,'' he said.
"There is appropriate supervision, laws are followed and there is great concern for the security of the State of Israel which in order to protect sometimes leads to secretive action."
Zygier died in December 2010 in a claimed suicide, but questions have been raised given the secrecy of his jailing and his isolated cell purportedly being suicide-proof.
He said Zygier's suicide was unfortunate but a full report had been prepared by a judge.
The Israeli government is considering partially lifting a gag order on the report in a bid to satisfy pressure from the media and the Australian government for answers to the case.
Mr Aharonovitch reaffirmed Zygier, an alleged Mossad spy who allegedly was leaking information of Israeli espionage operations to ASIO, was given all the normal rights of a prisoner including visits from his family and lawyer and was only tried behind closed doors for national security reasons.
Meanwhile, an inquiry by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee in to the affair has begun with Israeli Defence Forces censor Brigadier General Sima Vaknin apparently providing evidence.
The committee's meetings are confidential so what he may or may not have said is unknown. It is expected the committee's findings will form the basis for information from Foreign Minister Bob Carr.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-ord...6580841939

[Magda Hassan]

I wonder if the Italian front company that sent electronic stuff to Iran had any thing to do with Stuxnet virus?