Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida is quoting "Western sources" as saying that the
foreign-born prisoner held in isolation in an Israeli jail before apparently
committing suicide was part of a Mossad crew responsible for the assassination
of a Hamas official in Dubai three years ago.
Also Thursday, Fairfax Media,
which owns the Sydney Morning Herald, cited Australian security officials as
saying they suspect the prisoner may have been on the brink of leaking
information on Israeli security operations which included the use of fraudulent
Australian passports.
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ABC News
in Australia on Tuesday named the prisoner as Melbourne native Ben Zygier, and
said that he had been recruited by Mossad after making aliyah some 10 years ago.
He had been 34 years old and married with two children at the time of his death,
ABC said.
Israel on Wednesday confirmed that it had been holding a prisoner
under a false identity for "security reasons", and that he had committed
suicide, but did not give a name or acknowledge any Mossad connection. According
to the Kuwaiti report, Zygier contacted the Dubai government after the killing
of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in his Dubai hotel room in January
2010.
He reportedly offered information on the assassination operation in return
for Dubai protection. Al-Jarida said that Zygier had subsequently been seized by
Israeli forces and imprisoned in such a way that even his guards were not aware
of his true identity. Meanwhile, an Australian security official told Fairfax
Media: ''[Zygier] may well have been about to blow the whistle, but he never got
the chance."
Leading Israeli lawyer Avigdor Feldman told Channel 10 television
on Thursday that he had met with Prisoner X on the day before his death, and
that he had "met with a balanced person, given the tragic outcome, who was
rationally weighing his legal options."