'Rabin's killer previous occupant of Prisoner X's cell'

Yigal Amir’s brother says facility was designed to drive inmate to suicide

The prison cell in which the man known as “Prisoner X” is said to have hanged himself in 2010 was designed for the sole purpose of sapping one’s will to live, Hagai Amir, the brother of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, said on Wednesday.

Guards reportedly found “Prisoner X,” who has been identified as Australian Ben Zygier, hanged in his Ayalon Prison cell in 2010. Australian media reported that Zygier was a Mossad agent.

Hagai Amir wrote Wednesday on his Facebook page that the solitary cell that had housed Zygier at Ayalon Prison was the same one in which his brother, Rabin’s assassin Yigal Amir, was confined for 10 years. He said that the purpose of the cell was to drive its occupant to suicide.

“The cell in which my brother was held in Beersheba and afterward in the Ayalon Prison [was] not at all intended to keep him safe or to protect others from him, as the prison services and state prosecution have asserted. Rather, it was meant first and foremost to break his spirit and push him to suicide, as they succeeded with that prisoner [Zygier],” Amir wrote on his Facebook page.

Ben Zygier's passport (photo credit: screen capture Channel 10) — Ben Zygier’s passport (photo credit: screen capture Channel 10)

Zygier was at one point investigated by Australia’s national security service, which suspected him of using his dual citizenship to spy for Israel, an Australian news site reported on Wednesday. A native of Melbourne, Zygier had traveled across the Middle East, including to Iran, Syria and Lebanon, and was suspected of aiding in the assassination of a top Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.