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

[Jan Klimkowski]

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

Good speculation.

Meanwhile, I love the following:

"Let me say clearly there are no anonymous prisoners in Israel,'' Public Security Minister Yitzak Aharonovitch said

Here's an alternate version:

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.

[Peter Lemkin]

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today's show looking at a scandal gripping Israel and Australia centered on a man once known simply as "Prisoner X," who was found dead in a maximum security prison in Israel in 2010. Israeli officials said he committed suicide. A gag order was placed on the Israeli media, barring reporters from revealing any information about the prisoner. His identity remained unknown until last week, when the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ran an exposé about the case on their program Foreign Correspondent. The episode began like this.

TREVOR BORMANN: It was a peephole look into a top-secret world, but just enough to grip a nation's attention and pose disturbing questions. What was the identity of a mysterious prisoner in one of Israel's toughest jails? And why the secrecy behind his extraordinary incarceration?

UNIDENTIFIED: We shouldn't be talking about this on the phone.

TREVOR BORMANN: When the media began to ask questions, the state mobilized to push through one of the harshest and most punitive suppression orders conceivable. The only piece of information to emerge since is that this man, housed in a purpose-built, high-tech, suicide-proof prison within a prison, somehow managed to kill himself. There are many inside and outside Israel who remain deeply concerned about the case of Prisoner X.

BILL VAN ESVELD: The old saying, sunlight is the best disinfectant. If there's no sunlight, we don't know what happened, and very dirty things could have gone on.

TREVOR BORMANN: Tonight, a special Foreign Correspondent investigation to unmask Prisoner X. It's a story that cannot be told here in Israel, because the government has threatened to jail anyone who writes about it, anyone who talks about it. The courts have effectively shut down any discussion of this case, because, they argue, this is a case of national security. For the first time, we reveal compelling evidence that Israel's infamous Prisoner X was a man from suburban Melbourne.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation went on to identify Prisoner X as Ben Zygier, an Australian-Israeli citizen who was allegedly a member of Mossad. While Israel has now lifted the gag order, much still remains unknown about the case. There were reports that Zygier was one of three Australians who changed their names several times and took out new Australian passports for travel in the Middle East and Europe for their work with Mossad. A Kuwaiti newspaper linked Zygier to the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was drugged and suffocated in his hotel room in Dubai months before Prisoner X was arrested.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his first public comments about Prisoner X.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] We are not like other countries. We are an exemplary democracy and regard the rights of defendants and individual rights no less than any other country. We are also more threatened, more challenged, and therefore we have to ensure the proper operation of our security branches. Therefore, I ask everyone to let the security services continue working quietly, so that we can continue to live in safety and tranquility in the state of Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined now by two guests. Dan Yakir is chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. His organization has led the effort in Israel to uncover information about Prisoner X. The Israeli Supreme Court has just today lifted a gag order on the group's role in the case.

And we're joined by Antony Loewenstein, who is joining us from Sydney, Australia, via Democracy Now! videostream, an independent journalist and author, co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices.

Antony, let's begin with you, if you could start off by just laying out what this case is all about, who this man was.

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: In short, this gentleman's identity was not known, as you said, until last week. We knew a little bit about the case a few years ago when the Israeli press reported that a gentleman had committed suicide in Israeli prison. We knew nothing else. Fast-forward to last week, and the Foreign Correspondent program on local television broke the story, and it's gone global since.

What essentially has come out in the last week has been a litany of information which really goes to the heart, I think, of what regularly happens between Australia and Israel. On the one hand, what happened to this gentleman, Ben Zygier, is unique. Not that many Israeli Australians die in Israeli prisons, either murdered or suicide. That's true. But on the other hand, the facilitation by the Australian Jewish establishment and the Australian intelligence services of young Jews to Israel, to live there, to obviously serve in the IDF, and sometimes work for Mossad, is not that unusual. It doesn't get talked about, the press doesn't really examine it very often, but it's not that unusual. And it goes to the heart, in some ways, of what the Jewish Zionist lobby here is about in Australia and indeed in many Western countries, including in your country, the U.S., which is to facilitate and blindly support Israeli security [inaudible]

AMY GOODMAN: Antony, we're going towe're going to cut off you for one minute, because Dan Yakir has just joined us. And thisbecause this Israeli Supreme Court decision has just come down, we don't want to lose him, as he goes off to other interviews. Dan Yakir is the chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Dan, can you speak to us about what the Supreme Court has just decided and what information you are going to be releasing now?

DAN YAKIR: It's only in regard to the proceedings we initiated two years ago. ACRI heard for the first time about Prisoner X in June 2010, six months before his death. And we addressed the attorney general, raising our concern about the prisoner being totally isolated and under complete secrecy. A few days after we heard about his death in mid-December, we filed a motion with the district court to lift the gag order, or at least limit its sweeping scope, to allow publication of some details about the charges brought against him, and especially the concern about how he was found dead in the most protected cell of the prison services. After the district court dismissed our motion, we filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court heard the appeal in February two years ago. But the judges also werethe judgesalso the judges on the Supreme Court heard the security services for an hour and a half ex parte. And after that, they told us they were convinced that the wholethat the complete secrecy is justified.

AMY GOODMAN: Dan, if you could step back for a minute and go back and tell us how you learned about this case. You knew about this man, Ben Zygier, in jail before he died, before he, quote, "committed suicide." Talk about how you knew about it, what alarms you started to raise, and then what happened after you learned he had, quote, "committed suicide."

DAN YAKIR: In May 2010, there was a short-lived report on an Israeli news site, Ynet, regarding a Prisoner X held in Ayalon Prison in complete isolation, and even the prison guards don't know his identity and are prohibited from talking to him. After a few hours, this report vanished, and it raised our concerns regarding the rights of the prisoner and the conditions that he is held, but also the complete secrecy around the affair. And we tried to gather some details about it but couldn't. And that's why we addressed the attorney general for the first time. Six months later, we got information from afrom a source connected to the media about him being found dead in his cell, and then we filed the motion with the courts.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dan Yakir, can you talk about what precedent there is, if any, for a gag order that was, we are to understand, exceptionally broad? Has there been a precedent for this before in Israel with any prisoner?

DAN YAKIR: There were a few cases in the last couple of years. In all those cases, ACRI either filed motions with the court or approached the attorney general, but they were muchfor a much limited period of time, in the case of Anat Kamm, a soldier in the IDF who was charged and convicted of copying hundreds of classified documents, and other cases. In the past, there were a few exceptional cases where prisoners were held under false identity for years. And the most notable one is Dr. Marcus Klingberg, a biologist who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the U.S.S.R., and he was held during most of his years in prison under false identity, and his trial was under complete secrecy.

AMY GOODMAN: Dan, we want to come back to you. We want to play a brief clip of the ABCthat's Australian Broadcasting CorporationTV documentary that exposed the identity of Prisoner X. In this, a former Australian intelligence agent, Warren Reed, expresses skepticism about claims that Ben Zygier committed suicide.

WARREN REED: There are lots of ways nowadays where you can pick up the extent to which the person in the cell is sweating, their heartbeat, all sorts of things. I mean, modern technology applied in a cell like that almost totally precludes any possibility of someone like him, sanitized in that way, could hang themselves. I find it almost impossible to believe.

AMY GOODMAN: Warren Reed also indicated the nature of his imprisonment suggested that the case was very sensitive.

WARREN REED: The degree of sanitization of this gentleman, where he was put in Unit 15 in that prison, which was constructed only as one cell, and hermetically sealing him away, in all human terms, even within the prison, from his society, his family, that suggests that it has to be something very, very touchy and very immediate. Otherwise, you wouldn't go to those lengths.

AMY GOODMAN: That is footage courtesy of ABC TV, Australia's Foreign Correspondent program. If you could comment on this, Dan Yakir, and also on the allegations that this man, that Ben Zygier, was involved with the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas official who was killed in Dubai in a hotel room that we all came to see on closed-circuit television?

DAN YAKIR: I have no information in regard of the charges that were brought against him.

AMY GOODMAN: Repeat that.

DAN YAKIR: I have no information in regard to the charges brought against him.

AMY GOODMAN: But in terms of what Warren Reed was saying, the Australian agent, to do with suicide?

DAN YAKIR: Yesterday, the Magistrates Court allowed to publish a part of the decision of the judge that investigated the circumstances of his death. And according to the finding of the judge, it was a suicide, because according to the tapes, the radio, direct cameras, no one entered the cell. And I accept that, though a little bitanother important finding of the investigative judge was thatthat prison guards areshould be charged negligently causing his death, and we're awaiting the decision of the attorney, the state attorney, in regard of charges that will be brought against senior officials of the prison services.

AMY GOODMAN: In a moment we're going to go back to Antony Loewenstein, who's in Australia, but the response, Dan Yakir, in Israel? How much support are you getting for exposing what has taken place, what you're beginning to understand and what you're revealing?

DAN YAKIR: I hope that this whole affair will be a watershed. I think most of the public, unfortunately, rely on the security services and saying that whatever they deem to be secret isshould be a secret. But I think the tragic result of this whole affair, I hope, will serve as a watershed of raising a positive suspicion against the security services, who have had aeither a conscious or unconscious interest to cover up mishappenings during their operation.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does this compare to treatment of Palestinian prisoners?

DAN YAKIR: Usually, Palestinian prisoners are not held under secret conditions or in isolation, but there was also the case of the engineer, Abu Sisi, from Gaza, who allegedly was kidnapped by the Mossad from a train in Kiev, and charges were brought against him of being involved in the rocket firing on Israel. And at first, the mere fact that he was arrested was under a gag order. After we filed a motion, this was lifted, but his whole trial was also conducted behind closed doors.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, Dan Yakir, chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as we turn back to Antony Loewenstein, who is the independent journalist and author following the Prisoner X story. The response in Australia, Antony, as you listen to Dan Yakir speaking from Israel?

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Look, the response by the establishment Jewish community has essentially been virtual silence. When the story broke last week, they havevirtually every Jewish lobby group has said nothing, literally nothing, until yesterday. There was a statement released by the leading Jewish organization in Australia which had a very kind of benign statement saying that we are encouraged by the fact that Israel and Australia will undergo a investigation, which I suspect will be a bit of a whitewash.

The Australian government is embarrassed, because the details of this case remain murky. One of the things that hasn't been mentioned is that during the Dubai hit on the Hamas operative in 2010, the Australian passports were used and forged for that mission, amongst other countries, as well. And the Australian government publicly at the time was pretty upset about this, as other governments were, as well. But in private, I've heard from a variety of sources, that in fact the reality was that this sort of thing is known to happen. Many governments do it, including our own government, my government, the Australian government.

So, officially, the Australian and the Israelis would like this issue to disappear. And one of the things that's become very clear in Australia in the last weekand indeed this is reflected, I think, in the fact that the Australian Jewish establishment sees its role as endorsing and enforcing what Israel does, whether it's backing the occupation or supporting a strike on Iranall those things fit into this narrative, which is young Jews who go to young Jewish schools in AustraliaAustralia is one of the most pro-Israel countries in the world, along with South Africa and, of course, obviously, the U.S.that it's not that surprising this sort of thing has happened. The details are unique, but the facilitation of a gentleman like Ben Zygier to undergo these kind of actions by Mossad is not that unusual. It just doesn't usually get talked about in the press.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what has been the significance of this case, you think, for Australia, as this news has come out?

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Well, I think one thing that it's doneand this has been discussed in the wider press, in the wider media and indeed in many public forums in the last weekhas been a lot of Australians are uncomfortable with the fact that an Australian citizen can go to Israel, become an Israeli citizen, join the IDF, undergo some kind of training and potentially work for Mossad and commit acts which, and in any definition, are breaches of international law, whether it's the assassination of Hamas leaders in Dubai or involved in other strikes against Iranian nuclear scientists. So, many people feel uncomfortable about this.

And one of the things that we do see in Australia, and we see it in the U.S. and many countries, is when Israel, for example, starts a war, whether it's against Lebanon or Gaza or elsewhere, you see a number of Australian Jewish dual nationals go to Israel to fight in the IDF with thosewith the Israeli military. And that sort of thing, I think, makes a lot of Australians uncomfortablerightly so, in my view. And I think there needs to be a real question herethis is one of the things that's being talked about in circles, not so much publicly in the Australian Jewish community, but certainly privately and indeed in the wider pressthat why does the Australian government feel comfortable facilitating young Jews to move to Israel, potentially commit acts of, arguably, in certain cases, terrorism, or at least breaches of international law, in Gaza or Lebanon or Dubai, wherever Ben Zygier may have been behind it.

AMY GOODMAN: But Antony, isn't the Australian intelligence now investigating why it was that Ben Zygier came back to Australia and changed his name and his passport several different times?

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Possibly, Amy, yes. But one of the things that also is involved in this story is that the Australian intelligence services knew what Ben Zygier was doing. One of the things that remains unclear is exactly why the Israelis arrested Ben Zygier and put him in high-security prison. Was it because he was leaking information to the Australian intelligence services? Was he about to break some story to the press? Was there a crisis of conscience? We don't know. These certainly are allegations that have been talked about here by a number of reliable sources, and indeed in Israel, as well. So, yes, the Australian intelligence services publicly are talking about an investigation, but just like in the U.S., they are incredibly opaque. There is not really any kind of legislative transparency in the way ASIO, which is the intelligence services here, operates. So, as much as we like to think that there would be some kind of investigation which is released publicly, the sad reality is that both Australia and Israel would like this situation to remain as it is todayin other words, very, very close relationship.

[Keith Millea]

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.

Jan

You've obviously been watching too many David Cronenberg movies...:director:

[Peter Lemkin]

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.

Jan

You've obviously been watching too many David Cronenberg movies...:director:

Its from Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis...

[Jan Klimkowski]

Australia.

Still supine in the face of Power.

Australia's foreign minister, Bob Carr, said "Open sourced material … would suggest he [Zygier] worked for the intelligence arm of the Israeli government. I cannot confirm or deny those reports, but you can draw your own conclusions."


"Open-sourced material"

"Cannot confirm or deny"

"Draw your own conclusions"

I wouldn't trust this tool to flush my toilet.

Prisoner X was working for Israeli government, Australia confirms

Evidence suggests Ben Zygier, who died in Israeli prison, worked for the Mossad, says minister


Alison Rourke in Sydney
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 March 2013 09.41 GMT

Bob Carr talks to journalists
Australia's foreign minister, Bob Carr, said 'open sourced material … would suggest [Zygier] worked for the intelligence arm of the Israeli government'. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Australia's foreign minister, Bob Carr, has confirmed that the man known as Prisoner X, a dual Israeli-Australian national who died in mysterious circumstances in a high-security Israeli prison in 2010, was working for the Israeli government.

Ben Zygier's death in December 2010, apparently by suicide, has been shrouded in mystery. Last month, Israel was forced to admit that it had secretly imprisoned Zygier on serious but unspecified charges.

Zygier, 34, a father of two, originally from Melbourne but who had lived in Israel for 10 years and was also known by the names Ben Allen and Ben Alon, was believed to have worked for Israel's external intelligence agency, the Mossad. He was arrested in February 2010.

Carr, said: "Open sourced material … would suggest he [Zygier] worked for the intelligence arm of the Israeli government. I cannot confirm or deny those reports, but you can draw your own conclusions."

His comments came as he released his department's review into Australia's handling of the Zygier case. He said the review raised "unanswered questions about the use of Australian passports of a dual national and they are not easily resolved".

"If it transpires that Australian passports were used for security or intelligence gathering by Israel in this case; it is something against which we take the strongest opposition," Carr said. "No country can allow the integrity of its passport system to be compromised."

He was unable to confirm speculation that Zygier's passports had been used in the 2010 murder of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, an operation in which a team of killers, believed to be Mossad agents, used stolen Australian and British identities.

Carr said: "We know that in 2010 there was an episode of this in Dubai. We can't say it took place in this case with Mr Zygier's several passports. I hope that one of the inquiries taking place in Israel can clarify this position."

"If that's confirmed we will be registering our strongest protest."

The Mossad's use of foreign passports prompted furious reactions from Britain and Australian not long before Zygier's secret arrest and an Israeli diplomat was expelled from Canberra a few months later.

Carr confirmed that Israeli authorities had given assurances to Australia's intelligence service, Asio, at the time of Zygier's detention that he would be afforded his full rights in jail. Carr also confirmed that Zygier had more than 50 visits from his family and lawyer during the 10 months he was held.

"At no time did his family or his lawyer come to the Australian government and say they needed assistance," he said. Carr said the decision by his department not to follow up on the Zygier case while he was detained "reflected an assessment that Israel would probably not grant access to Mr Zygier".

Carr reaffirmed that the Australian ambassador in Tel Aviv had not been informed of Zygier's detention but said the Australian government had sought and relied on assurances from the Israeli government that his legal rights would be respected, that he had a lawyer of his own choosing and that he was not being mistreated.

[Magda Hassan]

Hezbollah was created as an Isralei tool to make a wedge in the Palestinian politics and make Hamas weaker.

Ben Zygier, who committed suicide while detained in Israel's maximum-security Ayalon prison, had given away sensitive information to a Lebanese militant group in an effort to recruit them, a German magazine has reported.
Zygier, the Australian-Israeli Mossad agent who was found hanged in his prison cell in December 2010, had passed information to Hezbollah, Der Spiegel reported on Sunday.

In the course of his work, Zygier met with Hezbollah supporters and while trying to convince them to work for Mossad, "disastrously spilled highly sensitive information," including the identities of Lebanese nationals secretly working for Israel, Der Spiegel reported.

Zygier seemed willing to divulge sensitive information on Israeli intelligence operations in an effort to not only attract new recruits, but to boost his reputation inside the renowned agency.

The Israeli agent's brazen methods became apparent in the early hours of May 16, 2009 when Lebanese special forces raided the home of Ziad al-Homsi in the village of Saadnayel in the western Bekaa Valley, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported on Monday.

According to the arrest warrant, Homsi was accused of being an Israeli spy. The warrant even gave his Mossad codename: The Indian.'

"The arrest came as a shock to many Lebanese, not just because Homsi had been the mayor of his town for years," the SMH report revealed. "He was also treated as a war hero, because he had fought against Israel on the side of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Syrian army during the Lebanese Civil War."

As the article revealed, Homsi had been recruited to work as a spy for Israel since 2006, earning around US$100,000 for his services.

There appears to have been good reason why Mossad sought Homsi's support: according to leaked excerpts from Homsi's interrogation, Homsi had assured his Israeli handlers that he could lead them to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Israel's sworn enemy, Hezbollah, who has remained in hiding for years, the SMH reported.

Another of those arrested was Mustafa Ali Awadeh, known as Zuzi' by Israeli intelligence, who reportedly had close contacts with Hezbollah.

The men were subsequently sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

The leaked intelligence that led to the arrests of these two highly valuable Mossad assets has been described as one of the most serious security breaches in Israel's 65-year history.

The story of Ben Zygier made international headlines only after an Australian news program identified Zygier as Israel's mysterious Prisoner X', whose cell in Unit 15 was originally built to house Yigal Amir, the fanatic who assassinated former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

''He is simply a person without a name and without an identity who has been placed in total and utter isolation from the outside world,'' a prison official was quoted as telling Israeli media in 2010, when news of the unknown inmate first broke.

When Zygier's death was announced, Israel - calling the case a potential threat to national security - issued a gag order preventing media from discussing the case.

After pursuing its own internal investigations', the report found that Zygier had begun working for Israeli intelligence in 2003, tasked with investigating European companies doing business with Iran and Syria.

The report said Israeli security officials had told Zygier following his arrest that they wanted to make an example of him and demanded a prison sentence of at least 10 years.

Zygier was found dead in his cell, which has been described as 'suicide-proof,' in December 2010 at the age of 34.

Now, many Australians are contemplating whether their government could have done more for one of its citizens.

http://www.russiatoday.com/news/israel-b...a-spy-773/

[Danny Jarman]

Hezbollah was created as an Isralei tool to make a wedge in the Palestinian politics and make Hamas weaker.

Maybe it's worth discussing in a separate thread on its own, but would you mind expanding on this?

[Magda Hassan]

Hezbollah was created as an Isralei tool to make a wedge in the Palestinian politics and make Hamas weaker.

Maybe it's worth discussing in a separate thread on its own, but would you mind expanding on this?

Sorry. My mistake. Not enough sleep. I meant Hamas was a creation to cause a wedge with Fatah. But still worthy a thread of its own.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html

[Magda Hassan]

Documents show Israel held other unnamed inmate at same time as Zygier

It is unclear what second anonymous prisoner's crime was, or if he is still in jail. But he was being held under conditions similar to those in which Zygier was held.

By Amir Oren | Jul.09, 2013 | 4:55 AM

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]
[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]ccording to the documents, from the Central District Magistrate's Court, the other prisoner had already been convicted. It's not clear what his crime was or if he is still in jail. But he was being held under conditions similar to those in which Zygier was held.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Ben Zygier, the former Mossad agent who committed suicide in his guarded cell while on trial for serious security crimes in December 2010, was not the only prisoner being held anonymously at the Ayalon Prison at that time, according to court documents released for publication on Monday at Haaretz's request.
Zygier was arrested in February 2010 and spent 10 months in an isolation cell in Ayalon's Block 15 before killing himself. The court documents reveal that apparently another man was then serving his sentence in Block 13. According to the report, it is possible that he, too, was an Israeli citizen with a background in security, though it's not clear if he was also in the Mossad. And as with Zygier, the Shin Bet security service and the prison's intelligence officers were in charge of all his contact with the outside world.
This information was included in an appendix to the transcript of hearings and decisions on the Zygier case, which the court president, Judge Daphna Blatman Kedrai, released for publication at Haaretz's request. Though the first page of the appendix is missing, its content makes clear that it is the report of the inquiry into the causes of Zygier's death conducted by the police under Blatman Kedrai's supervision.
The inquiry discussed the case of the other anonymous prisoner in an effort to ascertain the usual procedure for handling prisoners of this sort.
"It's important to note," the investigators wrote, "that the investigative material includes extremely lengthy, detailed and specific procedures regarding both the previous occupant of Block 15" − Yigal Amir, the murderer of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin − "and apparently another prisoner residing in Block 13 ‏(a high-security unit whose characteristics, like the characteristics of its occupant, are very similar to those of Block 15 and its occupant‏)."
Nevertheless, the report continued, "with regard to the handling of [Zygier], very exceptionally, no orderly procedures were set and no order was issued on this matter." That conclusion was based on testimony from the prison commander, the shift commander, the intelligence officer and his assistant, the operations officers and the control center staff.
A comparison between blocks 13 and 15 is also made one other time in the report: "A clear and unequivocal picture arises, according to which in the months before the suicide, Ayalon Prison's technology staff applied to the intelligence officer, as the person with sole responsibility for [Zygier], several times, on several different occasions, and asked that the cameras in Block 15 be upgraded. It's important to note that at that time, cameras in the other isolation block, Block 13, underwent a similar upgrade."
The names of the Israel Prison Service staffers involved in the inquiry are still under a gag order. In recent weeks, disciplinary measures have been taken against six of them. Some have also been transferred over the last two years, but according to the prison service, this is unrelated to the disciplinary proceedings.
Haaretz submitted several questions to the Israel Prison Service over the weekend about the other anonymous prisoner: Who is he? Is he still there? How long a sentence is he serving and when did he start serving it? Have lessons from the Zygier case been learned and applied to the supervision of this prisoner, including, among other things, a change in the balance between protecting the prisoner's privacy and preventing suicides? Has the Zygier affair caused the prison service to change its work practices and reporting rules for mental health professionals − psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers − in general, and regarding the prisoner in Block 13 in particular? And finally, is Zygier's former cell in Block 15 now occupied by someone else, or is it empty?
To all of these, Israel Prison Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman replied, "The prison service doesn't release information about the placement of prisoners in particular cells or blocks."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-de...r-1.534661

[Magda Hassan]

Prisoner X's lawyer: Another inmate committed 'far more severe' offenses

Attorney Avigdor Feldman, the last person to see Ben Zygier before he died, says defense establishment's failures with 'Prisoner X number two' are 'astounding,' and reveal 'horrible security breach.'

By Haaretz Staff | Jul.09, 2013 | 2:34 PM


The isolation cell in which Ben Zygier, known as 'Prisoner X,' was incarcerated. Photo by Haaretz



Attorney Avigdor Feldman, the last person to see Ben Zygier alive before he was found hanged in his cell in Ayalon Prison in 2010, said Tuesday on an Israeli radio show that the offenses committed by another inmate incarcerated under similar conditions at the same time as Zygier were much more severe.
Asked on 103FM about the kinds of offenses committed by the mysterious inmate, Feldman said, "without getting into the details, they are far more sensational, far more astounding and far more fascinating."
According to Feldman, "this affair points to far more severe failures than the ones committed by the defense establishment in Zygier's case. Regarding Zygier's case, the authorities that recruited him didn't understand who they were dealing with and weren't aware of his conduct. Okay - that's a failure. Prisoner X number two is an entirely different story - a horrible security breach. When I heard the story, as an Israeli citizen I was shocked, and the subject was completely silenced by lawyers who enjoy close ties with the establishment. Whoever opens this affair will be doing the country a great service."
Earlier Tuesday, Feldman compared the two cases on Army Radio: "One: they're both Israelis. Two: They worked for a security agency of the highest level of secrecy. Three and this is important their activity points to a security failure that allowed the crime to be committed, secrets to be kept, or other deeds to be done," Feldman said on "Boker Tov Yisrael" (Good morning Israel).
According to documents from the Central District Magistrate's Court, another, anonymous prisoner was being held at Ayalon at the same time as Zygier, and was serving out his sentence under similar conditions.
Zygier, an alleged Mossad agent popularly known as "Prisoner X," was arrested in February 2010 and spent 10 months in the isolation cell of Block 15 before he apparently committed suicide in December 2010.
The second prisoner was being held in Block 13 at the same time, according to the court report. He had reportedly already been convicted (as opposed to being detained during proceedings). It is unclear whether that prisoner is still being held at Ayalon.
The report was included in an appendix to a transcript of the hearings and decisions in the Prisoner X case. Judge Daphna Blatman Kedrai, the Central District Magistrate's Court president, permitted the publication of the documents in response to a petition by attorneys Tali Lieblich and Yaron Shalmi of the Lieblich-Moser law firm.
Though the first page of the appendix is missing, its content makes clear that it is the report of the inquiry into the causes of Zygier's death conducted by police under the supervision of Blatman Kedrai and the District Attorney's Office of the Central District. According to the documents, the investigation was conducted by a special team of the security department within the police's Unit of International Crime Investigations.
The inquiry also addresses the case of the other anonymous prisoner in an effort to ascertain the usual procedure for handling prisoners of this sort.
"It's important to note that the investigative material contains highly specific, long and detailed regulations," an investigator said. These regulations were in effect "both for the previous inmate of Block 15," the investigator said, referring to Yigal Amir, and "for the other inmate of Block 13."
But "the investigative material that was gathered shows that in everything that had to do with the treatment of [Zygier], uncharacteristically, no specific procedure was laid down and no order issued on the matter." This finding is based on testimony from the head of the Ayalon Prison, the shift commander, the intelligence officer, operations officers and control-center personnel.
The appendix includes a list of Israel Prison Service employees who were questioned under caution.
The report evidently relied in part on information from the Israel Prison Service's own internal investigation, which was headed by Col. Avraham Meron, who was then the deputy commander of the Maasiyahu Prison. Meron has since become the head of the intelligence-collecting unit of the Prison Service's intelligence department.
On Army Radio Tuesday, Feldman also said he believed Zygier may have attempted suicide in an effort to get the prison staff's attention, hoping they would rescue him.
"I ask myself straightaway whether it's conceivable that Zygier, who was aware that he was under surveillance all the time, attempted suicide with the intent of being saved at the last moment. It's possible that Ben Zygier was convinced the entire time that the system, which kept him under such close watch, would save him at the last moment," he said.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/pri...m-1.534753