‘Crime’ of Prisoner X - Mossad agent unwittingly tipped off Hezbollah

March 26: He was one of the world’s most mysterious detainees. Known only as “Prisoner X”, the disgraced Mossad agent Ben Zygier was held in absolute secrecy in Israel’s most secure prison before apparently killing himself in late 2010.

Israel refused to disclose details of the case and denied a request for information from Australia, where Zygier was born, while gagging the Israeli media.

But now the reason for Zygier’s tragic downfall has finally been revealed after an investigation found that he accidentally passed secrets — and the details of Israel’s informers — to Hezbollah, Israel’s Iranian-sponsored arch-enemy.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald and Der Spiegel magazine, in Germany, Zygier, who moved to Israel in the 1990s, was led astray while trying to recruit a Hezbollah contact to be a double agent for Mossad. His recruit fooled him into leaking Israeli military secrets and compromising the identities of informers.

It was, the investigation found, one of the most serious security breaches in Israeli history. “(Zygier) got himself mixed up in something that was much bigger than him — the Hezbollah affiliate was much more professional,” said Ronen Bergman, the intelligence correspondent for Israel’s Yedioth Ahronot, writing for Der Spiegel. Zygier, who was raised in Melbourne but moved to Tel Aviv and took Israeli citizenship, was recruited to Mossad in 2003 and sent to work in the field a year later, mainly infiltrating companies in Europe that had links to Iran and Syria.

However, in 2007, he was ordered back to Tel Aviv and reassigned to a desk job within the Israeli spy agency headquarters because his bosses were unhappy with his work.

Angry that he had been demoted, Zygier went rogue and embarked upon a botched mission to prove himself a worthy Mossad field operative, according to the reports.

He apparently set about trying to recruit an eastern European man known to be close to Hezbollah militants, setting up meetings in late 2008 with the aim of recruiting the man as a double agent.

But his plan failed and his target, instead, gleaned information from him, including the names of Israel’s top two Lebanese informants, Ziad al-Homsi and Mustafa Ali Awadeh. The Lebanese men were both arrested by Beirut in 2009 and jailed.

Mossad discovered Zygier’s wrongdoing while he was back in Australia on leave. He was called back to Israel for questioning, during which he confessed that he had unwittingly been double-crossed. He was arrested in early 2010 by Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, and placed in the infamous Ayalon Prison in Ramla.

According to Bergman, it is believed that Zygier was unable to bear the shame of his downfall and the prospect of a 10-year jail sentence, with no return to Mossad.

After phoning his mother Louise in Melbourne, Zygier apparently took his own life in his prison cell on December 15, 2010. “This is not a story of treachery, this is a sad story of an avid Zionist who emigrated from Australia to Israel and wanted to be a Mossad hero,” Bergman told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday.

Bob Carr, the Australian foreign minister, has confirmed that Zygier was working for Israel but stopped short of confirming that he worked for Mossad.

Friends whom Zygier made during his army service and in Australia said he often showed off that he was in Mossad, and even exaggerated his role at the infamous spy agency.

“It was always a dream of his to join the Mossad. I always thought he wanted it too much,” said Yonatan Meir, who knew him from his army days.