BY RONEN BERGMAN, JULIA AMALIA HEYER, JASON KOUTSOUKIS, ULRIKE PUTZ and HOLGER STARK
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
Mossad agent Ben Zygier was found hanged in his cell and his
case made headlines around the world. New information shows that Zygier,
once a passionate Zionist, had become a turncoat who delivered
sensitive information to Hezbollah.
The guards found the Mossad agent at 8:19 p.m., his lifeless body
hanging from a moist sheet. The sheet was tied to the window above the
toilet in his prison cell.
The cell in which Ben Zygier died was divided into two sections, one
containing a bed, a seating area and a kitchenette, and a separate
shower room with a toilet. There were three cameras monitoring the
prisoner, but none of the security officers noticed that there had been
no signs of life from Zygier in more than an hour. When the guards found
him in the shower room, his body had already begun cooling. It was an
undignified death for a Zionist who had set out to defend Israel's
future. "Our job was to isolate him, not to keep him alive," one of the
guards later said.
The Ayalon maximum-security prison, where Zygier was imprisoned, is
in Ramla, a suburb in northeast Tel Aviv. There are 700 prisoners and
260 guards at the facility, one of the best guarded prisons in all of
Israel. The prisoners in the maximum-security wing are not allowed to
use the synagogue or the fitness room, with its punching bag and
exercise mats.
Cell No. 15, in which Zygier died, is reserved for enemies of the
State of Israel. Yigal Amir, the murderer of former Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin, was held there. Enemy of the state is also the
designation with which Zygier could enter the annals of Israeli history.
It has been two years since the prisoner died, but only now are bits
of information coming to light. The case has made headlines around the
world, putting both the governments of Israel and Australia on the
defensive. In Tel Aviv, the affair has been treated as a state secret
with a gag order, which has only recently been loosened, imposed on the
media. Conspiracy theories about his fate have been plentiful, including
speculation that Zygier was murdered in prison.
Shadow Intelligence War
Now, for the first time, it has become possible to describe what
really triggered the agent's imprisonment. For months, a SPIEGEL team
from Germany, Israel and Australia looked into the case, conducting
interviews with Zygier's former friends and business partners, employees
of various intelligence services and governments. The research shows
that Zygier -- likely unintentionally -- became one of the most
controversial spies in Israeli history, responsible for the arrests of
several Lebanese informants who delivered information to the Mossad. He
did what no Mossad agent had ever done before in this shadow war of
intelligence agencies in the Middle East: He betrayed his country to its
mortal enemies.
His story is that of a young man who dreamed of becoming an Israeli
hero, one who wanted to prove himself no matter how high the cost. One
who failed and saw no other way out than to commit suicide.
There were no indications of this dramatic end when Benjamin Zygier
was growing up in a neighborhood in southeast Melbourne. His father
Geoffrey, known as a conservative Jew, ran a successful muesli business
and was involved in the Jewish community. Ben Zygier attended the best
Jewish schools in the city, and joined the leftist Zionist youth
organization Hashom Hatzair.
After graduating from high school in 1993, he began studying law at
Monash University and eventually announced his intention to move to
Israel. "I wasn't very surprised that he had the guts to try something
bigger in life than just working as an attorney in a Melbourne law
firm," Carolyn Creswell, a friend of the family and Zygier's former
English teacher, told Australian reporters.
In 1994, he made his dream reality and moved to the Gazit kibbutz in
Israel to find out if the country could become his new homeland.
The kibbutz is in northern Israel, on a road lined with eucalyptus
trees as it winds through the hills of Galilee. About 500 people live in
Gazit, where low houses with tiled roofs stand in the shadow of Mt.
Tabor. In the main office at the kibbutz creamery stands Daniel Leiton,
40, a man with strong hands and an Australian accent. "Ben was an
incredible person," says Leiton -- happy, friendly and warm. Leiton says
Zygier was one of his best friends.
Tense or Worried?
Zygier and Leiton met in Melbourne in the late 1980s. Though both
were still teenagers, they were already Zionists at the time. It was
clear to Ben at an early age that he would make Aliyah, says Leiton.
Aliyah is the term used by Jews in the diaspora to describe moving to
the Holy Land.
Leiton was there when Zygier married his Israeli girlfriend, and he
knows the family well. The last time Leiton saw Zygier was in early
2010, in Melbourne, shortly before his arrest.
Was there anything odd about his behavior? Did he seem tense or
worried? No, says Leiton. He was the same as always. The notion that his
friend committed suicide is "unimaginable," Leiton says quietly, noting
that Zygier was not suicidal at all. He can't imagine his friend being
kept in isolation, in a maximum-security cell at Ayalon Prison.
What about as a Mossad agent? Leiton swallows and says nothing.
In the kibbutz, Zygier always raved about the Zionist dream, recalls
Lior Brand, who lived with Leiton and Zygier in the kibbutz at the time.
According to Brand, Zygier was clever, educated and worldly. He was
also prepared to defend Israel at all costs. Indeed, he could have been
the perfect man for the Mossad.
For decades, the legendary intelligence service has been waging a
shadow war against enemies who threaten to obliterate Israel. Mossad
agents killed Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah in Damascus in 2008 and
Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010. They have
liquidated Iranian nuclear scientists, sabotaged Hezbollah hideouts in
Lebanon. The Mossad constantly needs new recruits for this war, which
has no beginning and no end.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the agency for the first time
ran public ads under its own name. "The Mossad is open. Not to
everyone. Not to many. Maybe to you," read the slogan in the agency's
campaign for "the job of your life." More
Friday 29 March 2013
Cracking Israeli Spy Rings: The Real Story Behind Israel's 'Prisoner X'
Posted @ 11:13
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