Death of Ben Zygier

Mister X, also Mr. X and Prisoner X, are placeholder names for a prisoner allegedly being held for unspecified crimes in Israel's maximum security Ayalon jail. A source in the Israel Prison Service claimed that the individual is a "terrorist" with a history of involvement with a banned organization (e.g. Hamas or Hezbollah). It is reported that the man is confined in total seclusion, and that he is being housed in the cell that was built for Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin.

An article in Hebrew about "Mister X" appeared on June 13, 2010 in the Israeli news website Ynet, but was deleted several hours later because of a gag order requested by the Israeli intelligence service, Shabak. A Seattle-based blog (Tikun Olam) published a screenshot of the article, as saved by Yahoo! Web cache, and an English translation. Excerpt:

Nobody knows who Mr. X. is. Ynet has learned that a man has been imprisoned for some time in wing 15 of Ayalon Prison but nobody knows who he is and what charges he is being jailed for. Nobody talks to him, nobody sees him, nobody visits him, nobody knows he is in jail. "He was placed in full and complete separation from the outside world," said an Israel Prison Service official. To enter the wing where the detainee is being held, you have to pass the jailers on the southern side of the prison and go through double iron doors. Unlike regular separation wings, where prisoners can talk loudly between the cells or see the goings-on in the corridors with mirrors, wing 15 has only one cell without neighboring cells and without a corridor, so that whoever is jailed in it is completely isolated from any living being.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel sent a letter to the attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, protesting the conditions of this man’s detention. The chief legal counsel for the Association, Dan Yakir, wrote:

It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place.

Weinstein's assistant replied that "The current gag order is vital for preventing a serious breach of the state's security, so we can not elaborate about this affair".

The Shabak gag order prohibiting mention of Mr. X or identifying him or her is still in place. In late June, The Daily Telegraph broke the gag by reporting the story, though it did not identify who the detainee was. The report speculated that the case may involve espionage.

In December, 2010, Tikun Olam (blog) qouted a confidential source in the inner political circle of Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, as saying that Prisoner X is Iranian Revolutionary Guard general and former Iranian deputy defense minister, Ali-Reza Asgari. Asgari disappeared in Istanbul in 2007 and reports have ciruclated that he was either kidnapped by western intelligence operatives or defected. News reports and Iranian sources quoted in the media have claimed Asgari is imprisoned in Israel. The Tikun Olam report provided the first confirmation by an Israeli source of the specific place he was imprisoned.

External links

• Justizskandal in Israel: Staatsgeheimnis um den Gefangenen X, Der Spiegel (German)