Rafael Epstein theguardian.com, Monday 10 March 2014
Australia has many secrets which are kept hidden for good reasons. But our security and military agencies would be strengthened – not weakened – if we knew more
The tombstone of Ben Zygier at Chevra Kadisha Jewish Cemetery in Melbourne. Photograph: Andrew Brownbill/AP
The suicide of Melbourne man Ben Zygier, also known as “Prisoner X”, in a high security Israeli jail cell in 2010, is not the only secret that raises questions at the highest level of Australia’s government. We are poorer as a nation for the lack of transparency, and the mystery surrounding the Australian government’s apparent indifference to his fate is a prime example of official obfuscation. Australia has many secrets which are kept hidden for good reasons, but our security and military agencies would be strengthened – not weakened – if we knew more.
Another example is our secret soldiers. As Australia’s war in Afghanistan headed toward its peak, successive governments talked again about creating a secret force, nominally controlled by the military, but directed by our spy agencies. One Canberra source told me they would be a covert offensive force – “what we don’t have, what we needed,” he said. It had been part of a defence submission to cabinet, and it had gathered dust in a bottom draw. Such a force would be a dramatic development because current law does not allow our spies such an attacking military role, and as far as we know Australia does not have any spies trained and permitted to fight like soldiers. But we know nothing about this secret force, and we likely never will.
I’ve not reported before on these secret soldiers, and there are many other operations that are never revealed inside our impossible-to-navigate network of military and intelligence agencies. These proposals and operations are done in Australia’s name, and could arguably further our national interests. But whether or not they do further our national interests, is not an argument we are permitted to have.
The trail on this story ran cold for me, but I did subsequently uncover and report on a force of SAS soldiers whose existence had never before been revealed. The Special Air Service’s 4 Squadron had been involved in work in Africa, on security and surveillance tasks that had irked some within our spy agencies.
I have much sympathy for the argument that the bulk of such matters must remain secret. However, if examples like new ways for our spies to fight and the treatment of Zygier have been issues considered by successive Australian prime ministers, why are such matters never publicly addressed? Why have politicians and spy chiefs never answered any questions about these matters?
Zygier had gone to live in Israel, fought in its army, and then joined its feared intelligence agency Mossad. While undercover for Israel, he worked inside a European company to try and penetrate Iran’s military and its nuclear program. He did this using Australian passports, one of which he’d used to get a visa at the Italian consulate in Melbourne. Later, on leave from his Mossad work, Zygier returned to Melbourne to study at Monash University in 2009. Concerned by Zygier’s misuse of his passport, he was followed by Australian intelligence and his phone calls were monitored. Months later, he was arrested in Israel.
The reason his arrest could have been high on the Australian governments agenda is that just two days later, the world was told of a spectacular Mossad assassination in Dubai. When the Hamas leader was killed in the Gulf state, the Israelis used three fake Australian passports among others. Curiously, this involved stealing the identity of three Melbourne Jews who had gone to live in Israel, just as Zygier had done. This misuse of Australian passports set up of a year of tension, with Australia’s national security establishment furious with Israel. Mossad’s man in Canberra was expelled, and the ALP government confirmed for the first time that Israel had misused Australia’s passports before.
ASIO chief David Irvine was sent to Israel to try and get some answers. Despite ASIO’s position at the centre of this stand-off, despite their concerns about Zygier’s misuse of his passport, the agency does not appear to have pushed for Zygier’s case to be discussed by our elected representatives. This is more than strange at a time when Israel’s misuse of passports was “an abuse of our national sovereignty”, according to then foreign minister Stephen Smith. As far as we know Zygier’s illegal use of his Australian passports, and his surveillance by Australian agencies, was never passed on to any minister other than then attorney general Robert McClelland. Even more curiously, the attorney general never raised it with his cabinet colleagues.
As I show in my book Prisoner X, it seems considerable Australian resources were used to track Zygier in Melbourne in 2009, but when he was arrested no one told then prime minister Kevin Rudd, nor his successor, Julia Gillard. To say this is odd is an understatement. Those who were told inside the Canberra bureaucracy at the time include our current ambassadors to China and Indonesia and Dennis Richardson, currently the top public servant in the defence department.
For various reasons, including not recollecting being told, relevant ministers weren’t told.
I tried and failed, formally and informally, to interview various politicians and bureaucrats about this curious lack of joining-the-dots at the very apex of Australia’s political and security establishment. I never received a reply anywhere close to an answer. In opposition, Julie Bishop believed these were important concerns. In March last year, she said during an interview: “Interestingly, this was at the very time that the Australian government was in a lather about Australian passports being used by Israeli intelligence agencies. So somebody must have thought maybe there was a connection, maybe there are questions to ask.” We only now about Canberra’s curious lack of curiosity because of an internal DFAT inquiry, instigated by then foreign minister Bob Carr. He’d unknowingly misled the ABC saying the government only learnt of Zygier’s incarceration at the time of his death.
Zygier’s family never requested consular assistance, and any Australian discussion of his fate may not have changed the sad end to his life. But Australians deserve better than the retort from Carr when he was pressed about these strange facts: “Listen pal, I wasn’t in the parliament at that time, I can’t shed any more light on it!”.
Other politicians were there, with access to Australia’s most closely held secrets, and we don’t know if they asked the questions they should have. Perhaps on this matter, and others, there is too much that the public just don’t know, and are simply not told.
