Israel agrees to pay family of 'Prisoner X' $1m over jail suicide

JERUSALEM // Israel is to pay more than US$1 million to the family of an alleged Mossad spy who hanged himself in prison in 2010, the justice ministry has announced.
"After negotiations, the two parties have reached an agreement whereby the state will pay 4 million shekels (Dh4.1m) to the deceased's family," the ministry said late on Tuesday.
Relatives of Ben Zygier, an Australian-Israeli known as "Prisoner X", had accused Israel of negligence in dealing with his case.
He was found hanged in his isolation cell in Ayalon prison near Tel Aviv in December 2010, a case Israel went to great lengths to cover up.
A court document released on April 25 said Israel's prison service had caused Zygier's death by failing to prevent him from committing suicide.
It also revealed details of his background and imprisonment, indicating he had been suicidal and had an emotionally charged conversation with his wife on the day he was found hanged.
It said that his cell had not been properly watched by prison guards.
The justice ministry stressed that the agreement reached with Zygier's family was not an "admission of alleged wrongdoing".
It said the deal was struck "to avoid the affair going to court, which would lead to the publication of numerous details of the case that could cause serious harm to national security".
Zygier, a Jew from Melbourne, moved to Israel in 2000, became a citizen and joined its army.
He was arrested in 2010 but his case was kept under wraps until February this year when an Australian television documentary revealed it.
The reasons for his detention remain top secret in Israel and his family has not commented.
Australia's Fairfax newspapers and the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported in March that the 34-year-old, who was allegedly working for Israel's foreign spy service Mossad, had unwittingly given away classified information about informants in Lebanon, who were subsequently arrested and jailed.
An investigation by the media organisations found that Zygier, who was said to have joined Mossad in 2003, was initially assigned to infiltrate European companies with business links to Israel's foes, including Iran and Syria.
However, the agency was disappointed by his performance and in 2007 he was recalled to a desk job in Tel Aviv.
Keen to impress his bosses and return to the field, Zygier reportedly embarked on a rogue solo mission to recruit a Balkans-based operative of the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah.
The latter demanded that he prove himself a Mossad agent by passing on real intelligence. Zygier complied, giving him the names of the informants.
Fairfax and Der Spiegel report said that the men named by Zygier - Ziad Al Homsi and Mustafa Ali Awadeh - were two of Israel's most prized informants.
They were arrested by Lebanese police in May 2009, convicted of espionage and sentenced to 15 years in jail, with hard labour.
* Agence France-Presse, with additional reporting by Reuters