Rafael Epstein - Prisoner X

Rafael Epstein is an awarding-winning journalist and ABC radio broadcaster. He currently presents Drive on 774 ABC Melbourne. He has won two Walkley Awardshis first with The Ages Nick McKenzie for their reporting on police corruption during Melbournes underworld wars, his second for his coverage of the arrest of Mohammed Hanif, the Indian-born doctor falsely accused over his connections to the failed bombings in London and Glasgow in 2007. Epstein has worked for the ABC in news and current affairs in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Timor, Indonesia, Europe and the Middle East. He has also worked in the Investigative Unit at The Age , focusing on Australias special forces and their role in Afghanistan.

He knew Ben Zygier when they were both involved in Jewish youth movements in Melbourne.

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

1115 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

mup-info@unimelb.edu.au

www.mup.com.au

First published 2014

Text Rafael Epstein, 2014

Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2014

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Cover design by Sandy Cull

Typeset by Megan Ellis

Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Epstein, Rafael, author.

Prisoner X/Rafael Epstein.

9780522864403 (paperback)

9780522864410 (ebook)

Zygier, Ben.

Jews, AustralianIsraelBiography.

AustraliansIsraelBiography.

PrisonersDeath.

Intelligence serviceIsrael.

Espionage, Israeli.

327.125694

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its principal arts funding and advisory body.

Reporters who try to uncover espionage enter a journalistic hall of mirrors, where you can only see what you already know, or what other people want you to see. In such investigations, answers can only be found when you ask the right questions, and very few facts are verifiable.

Discovering precisely what Ben Zygier did, dealing with agencies whose raison dtre is to deceive, has not been easy. I spoke to national security sources in Australia and Israel, and to members of Bens family and his friends. I also accessed the court records that were first sought by Israels Haaretz newspaper, among others, and relied on works on the Mossad by journalists in Israel. This book represents my best effort to explain what happened. My research suggests that much of what has been published previously about Ben has not been accurate. Over the coming years, more accounts of his life may be produced and they may verify what I have been told, though they could also prove me wrong.

There are many people in Israel and Australia who would vehemently oppose the publication of this book. I know that any further publicity about Bens life will especially pain his family and friends, and I am truly sorry I have added to that, but there are vitally important questions about Bens story that are still unanswered. I have changed the names of some of the people whose lives were intertwined with Bens, including those of his wife and his eldest daughter. And I have chosen to not divulge certain details to protect the identities of some people who spoke with me for this book. But Bens story is already public, and the portrayal of him as either a zealot or a traitor is not only wrong, it covers up the lack of transparency and simple care displayed by the governments of Australia and Israel. Bens fate ended up affecting the relationship between the two countries, and it also affected perceptions of Australias Jewish community. And as intelligence agencies play a crucial role in both societies, they also need scrutiny. I have devoted my professional life to the principles of transparency, and to the revelation of facts that could help to ensure governments and their agencies are as open as they can be with the people they serve, and it is in this vein that I have written this book.

While grappling for solid truths about Bens life, I kept in mind the motto of the agency for which he worked. The Mossads full name is Ha Mossad le Modiin ule Tafkidim Meyuh.adim. Its direct translation is the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, which is usually shortened to the Institute. But translating its motto is not as simple, and that reflects much about the organisations true nature. The motto Where there is no counsel, the people fall, but where there are many counsellors there is safety is taken from the Book of Proverbs. In the King James Bible, the Hebrew word takhbulot is the basis for the words counsel and counsellors. But in modern spoken Hebrew, takhbulot is understood to mean something very differentploys or a batch of tricks. Even in the Bible, takhbulot is not always translated as counsel. For example, in the phrase for by takhbulot thou shalt make thy war, it is often interpreted as ruses.

This suggests another way to translate the Mossads motto: Without ruses, Israel would fall, but when there is plenty of misinformation, Israel finds salvation. This motto is worth remembering when trying to work out how much of what has been said about Ben Zygiers life is verifiable and how much is speculation.

T his is Ayalon prison Listen! He hanged himself. We need an ambulance! These are the first words uttered by the guard of the mystery prisoner when he calls the paramedics. The warden has just walked into cell 15 and found the man hanging immobile in his shower. As he calls for an ambulance, other prison guards remove the wet sheet that is twisted around the prisoners neck and tied to the window in the bathroom/shower area at the back of his cell. I dont have details, the warden insists over the phone. Ill tell the medic to get back to you. It is 8.20 p.m. on Wednesday 15 December 2010. For the entire ten months that the inmate has been with them, the guards in the Israeli prison have not known his name, what he has been charged with, or that he used to work for Israel as a spy.

The wardens soon realise their attempts to resuscitate the prisoner are futile. His body is cool and there is no pulse. Even to their untrained eyes, it looks like he has been dead for some time. It should not be easy to kill yourself inside one of the most watched solitary cells in Israel, a cell with three cameras trained on it. But these are only useful if the images they broadcast are crisp and clean, and such images are only as reliable as the guards who watch them. The cameras have needed replacing for months, and on this night their blurry images were not being watched.

Ayalon prison, Israels biggest, is a rambling collection of imposing sheds covered in corrugated iron, faceless multistorey buildings, massive brick walls and forbidding fences. Lengths of razor wire are coiled lazily on top of each other; they drip off parapets and climb up the guard towers like metal ivy. The medical base sits just a few hundred metres away, its ambulances parked behind a low metal fence. Within minutes of the guards call the paramedics are inside the prisons reinforced brick and metal walls, but theyre bewildered by the lack of information. The paramedics are not told the prisoners name; theyre not shown a photo of him; theyre not told his birthdate; theyre not given other basic details like next of kin. The guards refer to the man only as Prisoner X, or ploni , the Hebrew equivalent of John Doe. The paramedics are confused by this but are told to carry on. The jail doesnt give us any details about this man, nothing, not his ID number, nothing at all, one ambulance officer complains on the night. This is a crazy cell. Ive never seen anything like this, cameras everywhere.