Australia confirms ‘Prisoner X’ worked for Israeli regime

RIA Novosti

Wed Mar 6, 2013 2:36PM GMT

Australia has admitted for the first time that the reportedly Israeli-Australian ‘Mossad agent’ called Prisoner X, who was found hanged in an Israeli jail in 2010, worked for the Tel Aviv regime.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr confirmed on Wednesday that Ben Zygier went off to live in Israel for 10 years, took its citizenship and worked for the Tel Aviv regime.

On February 12, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that Zygier was “found hanged in a cell with state-of-the-art surveillance systems” near Tel Aviv in late 2010.

Originally born in Melbourne, the 34-year-old man with a dual Australian-Israeli citizenship had worked for the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, the ABC reported.

Following the revelation, the Israeli regime was forced to acknowledge the existence of ‘Prisoner X’ after two years of great efforts to gag any media reports about the case.

On February 17, Australia called on the Israeli regime to provide details over the circumstances surrounding the suspicious death of Zygier.

Carr, however, stopped short of confirming that Zygier was a Mossad spy.

“And if reports are to be believed, he worked for one of its intelligence services. That's not something I can deny or confirm. You can draw your own conclusions,” said the Australian foreign minister.

Carr further added that Canberra is awaiting the outcome of Israeli investigations into the case.

Another report by the New York Times on February 14 said Zygier was among the 26 suspects in a murder plot in which Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas official, was tracked and killed in his hotel room hours after his arrival in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, in January 2010.

The Guardian also wrote on the same day that Israel’s efforts to stifle media “backfired as Israel faced a deluge of embarrassing revelations about the case which appeared to expose the detailed workings of its overseas intelligence agency in the most graphic detail, as well as the growing irritation of Israel’s allies over the Mossad’s behavior.”

MKA/JR