By Richard Spencer 7:59PM GMT 18 Feb 2013
A suspected Mossad spy, once known only as Prisoner X, was found hanged in his cell. What secrets did Ben Zygier take to his grave?
Ben Zygier had dual Israeli and Australian nationality. His incarceration outside Tel Aviv was so top secret his jailors weren’t allowed to know his name Photo: AFP/Getty Images
We all love conspiracy theories, particularly when there actually is a conspiracy. The odd thing is that when offered competing conspiracy theories, we often plump for the dullest – it’s the bankers, or the CIA, or Zionists. If you’re going to speculate, why not come up with something original?
Here’s a practical example. Israel and Australia and all countries in between have been buzzing for days over the fantastic case of Prisoner X, a once nameless inmate of a solitary confinement wing in Israel’s most secure jail. I say nameless: he was so top secret, his jailors weren’t allowed to know his name(s).
So who was this modern-day Man in the Iron Mask? Australian television discovered he was a Mossad agent originally from Melbourne called Ben Zygier, scion of a prominent Jewish family who emigrated to Israel; and who later acquired a number of Australian passports in names other than his own.
Moreover, in December 2010 he was found hanging in his cell’s bathroom, a death ascribed to suicide despite his being under 24-hour surveillance. Cue the theories: it is not hard to see the possibilities in a story involving Mossad, the Middle East, mysteriously dead nameless prisoners and double identities.
But there we have my point: what is the explanation that the media have come to accept? According to most accounts, Zygier was involved with the Mossad intelligence service in faking and cloning Australian passports, and had informed Australian intelligence services of this. Such accounts add – correctly – that Mossad has had a long reputation for cloning passports, which has drawn the wrath of many otherwise friendly governments, including Britain. Case closed.
But is that it? Are we supposed to believe that Prisoner X was seized and interrogated, threatened, as his lawyer subsequently said, with life imprisonment and with being ostracised from his family, and that maybe (according to innuendo) he was killed, all because he was about to reveal a passport scam that the world already knew about? It doesn’t make much sense, and it’s dull to boot.
In the absence of solid answers, which we are unlikely to receive, I propose something more imaginative. But that does not mean we shouldn’t start with the known facts.
The existence of Prisoner X was originally revealed by the US-based blogger Richard Silverstein, who suggested he might be a missing Iranian general; he was obviously wrong on that point, which he now believes was a plant to divert him from the truth. In fact, according to the Australian network ABC, which must have been leaked information by the intelligence services, Prisoner X was Zygier, and he was arrested in February 2010. Australian intelligence was notified by its Israeli counterpart on February 24 (remember that date). He was, according to his lawyer, indicted for “grave crimes”, which he denied, was held incommunicado, and then was found hanged on December 15.
The timing is important. First, his name as a Mossad agent had previously been given to an Australian journalist, who “fronted him up”, saying he had been questioned for repeatedly applying for passports in different names. He denied it. Second, around the time of his arrest, Mossad killed the Hamas gun-runner, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai; the agents responsible used 27 Western passports, including four Australian, mostly clones with the original bearers’ names but the agents’ photographs.
The world learned all this when Dubai showed passport pictures to a press conference on February 15, three weeks after the killing, and that is what leads us to the theory for Zygier’s arrest. It’s easy to make that assumption, and say Zygier was arrested “after the use of cloned Australian passports was revealed by Dubai police”. The only question left to interpretation is whether he informed Australian intelligence, Dubai police, or both.
But in key aspects, the statement beginning “after” is wrong. The use of three of the Australian passports was revealed not on February 15 but nine days later, in a press conference on February 24, the very day the Australians were informed of Zygier’s arrest. (The fourth was revealed later still.) The first batch shown off by Dubai police included British and Irish passports but not Australian.
Moreover, the use of cloned passports was not “revealed by Dubai police”: when they made their amazing announcement, they were unaware that the passports weren’t genuine. This was only discovered when the owners were tracked down. So the timeline disappears – he was already arrested when the Australian involvement became known; and he didn’t tell Dubai, because they seemed not to know.
Also, of course, the more obvious question: since everyone knew even before this that Mossad cloned passports, why would he need to reveal it? Would revealing such a well-known fact to a friendly intelligence agency be counted a “grave crime”? Would he have to be kept so incommunicado for knowing something everyone knew?
More “revelations” emerged yesterday: that his spilling the beans perhaps went further than the passports, to the whole Mossad mission. Now, at least, we are making progress. According to reports, among the places Zygier went to was Iran, where he was in contact with agents that Mossad used in operations against Israel’s most feared adversary. Celebrated coups attributed to Mossad there range from killing nuclear scientists to the sabotage of weapons and computer systems. Perhaps this is the game Zygier gave away, and Israel was determined he should not have the chance to give it away more widely. (Curiously, holders of two Australian passports used in planning the Mabhouh hit afterwards boarded a ferry from Dubai to Iran.)
Richard Silverstein, the blogger, wonders whether Zygier was “turned” by Australian intelligence, who made him feel bad about using dodgy Australian passports to help kill people, thus bringing disrepute to the country of his birth. And so the theory completes the circle – a motive for his betrayal of Israel, a motive for Israel to respond, and a motive for outraged Aussie intelligence to leak the whole thing to the media.
Does it wash, though? Could Zygier have been unaware before he joined that Mossad cloned passports and killed people? If he found the job not to his taste, why not just return to Australia? If he betrayed Israel to Australia, would he go back to Israel? Even if Australian intelligence practises moral blackmail on dual nationals working for other intelligence agencies, which doesn’t sound likely, what secrets would they have gained? That Mossad cloned passports? That it killed people?
I suspect the secret that Israel is trying to hide is more sensitive than even its operations in Iran (which in Israel would be covered by censorship, and outside would come as no great surprise). The Mabhouh connection reminds me of Mossad’s known cooperation with Gulf intelligence agencies, including state security in the United Arab Emirates, on areas of “mutual interest” (including Iran). Many people were puzzled that Dubai police were so swiftly able to identify what happened in the Mabhouh hit, including showing off the 27 passports. Dubai’s police are of variable quality.
Emirati state security is a different matter, omnipresent, Western-trained and employing the latest Western technology. Many people pointed to their potential involvement in the investigation. State security, a federal organisation, is run from the big brother emirate of Abu Dhabi, and Abu Dhabi far more than Dubai hates Iran, hates Hamas, and hates Dubai’s reputation as a freewheeling place for money-launderers and gun-runners, particularly after the financial crisis during which it bailed out its flashier neighbour.
Living there at the time, I always wondered whether state security might have known about the hit all along, even tipped the wink.
There are other possible Dubai/Mossad links: Israelis are not totally absent from the emirate, which works closely with Tel Aviv and Antwerp in the diamond trade, of which the three cities are international hubs. Dubai meanwhile is also Iran’s closest trading partner, a convenient base for shipping goods (and spies and bombs?) across the Gulf.
There are a lot of secrets to be revealed there, and while we don’t know what Zygier knew, it’s quite possible he knew a lot of them. I’m speculating, but no more than anyone else. Am I right? Well, let’s see if I disappear any time soon, either in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Tel Aviv.
Ben Zygier: The great Prisoner X conspiracy theory - Telegraph
