The Israeli censor on Wednesday slightly eased tight restrictions on the death of “Prisoner X”, allowing the press to publish excerpts of an ABC report which said he was an Australian with ties to Mossad.
The story of the so-called Prisoner X first emerged in May 2010 when Israel’s Ynet news website briefly ran a story about a prisoner being held in top secret conditions whose identity and crime was not even known to his jailers.
The story was quickly taken offline and a complete media blackout was imposed, but it reemerged on Tuesday when Australia’s ABC news identified the mystery prisoner as an Australian national who had reportedly been recruited by Israel’s shadowy spy agency.
After three Israeli MPs raised questions over the issue in parliament, the censor moved to ease the reporting restrictions, allowing the Israeli media on Wednesday to report the details published in the ABC report.
In its report, ABC named the prisoner as 34-year-old Ben Zygier, but said he was known in Israel as Ben Alon.
It said his arrest and incarceration was one of the most sensitive secrets of Israel’s intelligence community.