(Image source: ABC Australia ) BY STEVEN SPARKMAN ANCHOR JAMAL ANDRESS It’s one of the most secretive cases in Israel’s history — a man imprisoned for an unknown crime, kept so isolated even his guards reportedly didn’t know his name. But now Australia’s state news agency thinks its finally learned the identity of Prisoner X: Ben Zygier, an Australian national who the report says moved to Israel twelve years ago and began working for the intelligence service, Mossad. Zygier was eventually arrested and put in solitary confinement. Why? Well, that’s a state secret. But a former Australian spy told the network Zygier’s crimes had to be pretty severe to warrant such harsh treatment. “However the transgression came about, it would have to be involved with espionage, possibly treachery, but very very sensitive information.” ( Via ABC Australia ) The story first broke shortly after Zygier’s death in 2010. Israeli news site Ynet News published an article, but was forced to take it down by the government. Everything about the story is a potential scandal: the extreme secrecy, the extra-judicial disappearing of a foreign national, the lack of any due process... the list goes on and on. Even Zygier’s death is suspicious. “In 2010, he ended up here in Ayalon Prison. … This was supposed to be a suicide-proof cell, but the report says he was found hanged in 2010 and his body was flown home to Melbourne.” ( Video via Al Jazeera ) Now that the secret’s partly out, the government has lifted the gag order and finally admitted Prisoner X existed. But they’ve been slow to release details, a fact that frustrates opponents of the government’s military censorship. “Debate has exploded within Israel over both the state’s handling of Prisoner X and its strict censorship. On Tuesday, members of the Israeli parliament … peppered Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman with questions, some of them clearly reflecting exasperation.” ( Via The Washington Post ) It’s doubtful the full account of Zygier’s involvement with Mossad, imprisonment and death will ever be public knowledge, but the most common guess right now is that he may have offered to sell information to a foreign power. The Guardian says that at any rate, the story gives Israeli intelligence a black eye. “While the case remains murky, the new revelations will be deeply embarrassing to the Mossad, not least because they shed new light on how the Israeli spy agency acquires cover identities for agents.” Zygier was reportedly married to an Israeli woman and had two young children.