Australia reviews death in Israeli jail
CANBERRA — Australian legislators demanded answers Wednesday about the suspicious death of an Australian-Israeli man in an Israeli prison and the government ordered a review of the case, while little more information about the death was revealed in Israel.
The review followed an Australian Broadcasting Corp. report on Tuesday that sought to lift the veil of secrecy from a case that Israel has long kept under wraps and revealed that the man, identified as Ben Zygier, was suspected of links to Israel’s Mossad espionage agency.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said a review will be conducted of his department’s handling of the prisoner, who was found hanged in an Israeli prison cell in 2010. He is named Ben Allen in his Australian passport. He was also known as Ben Alon and was born Ben Zygier, and it is not certain that the passport name is genuine. A spokesman for Carr said the review was not meant “to suggest anything untoward has happened, but given that there’s an interest in the case, let’s have the review.”
Carr also revealed that some Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials knew in 2010 that Allen was detained, contradicting an earlier statement that the department only became aware after he died.
Among the lawmakers demanding clarifications was shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, who told ABC she wanted to know why details about the case were being censored in Israel.
The affair emerged in June 2010, when the Israeli news site Ynet briefly reported on the existence of a prisoner — identified only as Prisoner X — whose crimes were unknown, but that report was removed from the site shortly after it was posted.
Ynet then reported on Dec. 27, 2010, that a prisoner had committed suicide while in solitary confinement two weeks earlier. That report, which said jailers took him down from his noose and unsuccessfully tried to revive him, was also quickly removed.
Israel’s military censor has the authority to block or even delete reports deemed threatening to national security.