"Regarding all the baseless chatter and talk I've been hearing about Prisoners X, Y and Z, Israel is a country that upholds the law," Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) said Wednesday, referring to the news of another secret "Prisoner X" in Israel.
The news caused a public storm on Tuesday, with criticism aimed at the government for apparently withholding information about yet another person secretly incarcerated for security offenses.
"We adhere to the very last letter of law. This is despite the matter at hand being of an especially severe nature," Lieberman said before the committee was convened. "All of these cases are under double supervision by the judiciary and the parliament through a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense subcommittee. We uphold all the rights [of the prisoner] in accordance with the law. We respect the rights of each and every [prisoner]."
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told Army on Radio on Wednesday that "without getting into the specific case -- it is important that Israeli citizens know that there are no prisoners in Israel who disappear without a trial, without legal defense and without their families knowing. ... I can say with complete confidence, we are not South America."
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch (Yisrael Beytenu) on Wednesday reiterated the government line that there are no anonymous prisoners held in Israel. He added, however, that "there are cases that cannot be made public, and this is to avoid harming the state's security; and this done through court-issued gag orders."
"There are also cases in which we have held a prisoner under a false name, but also in these cases all of the prisoner's rights are strictly upheld, and certainly these prisoners don't disappear from the court's eyes," he said.
A day earlier Aharonovitch adamantly denied that he had lied when he told the Knesset that the only "Prisoner X" in Israel was former Mossad agent Ben Zygier, who committed suicide in his maximum-security prison cell two and half years ago.
"If the citizens don't know about a certain case or another about a prisoner, it does not mean that this prisoner is nameless and that the relevant authorities supervising his incarceration are oblivious to his existence," the Public Security Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Attorney Avigdor Feldman, one of Zygier's attorneys and the last person to meet with him before his suicide, raised the issue of at least one other Prisoner X in Israel during interviews with various Israeli media outlets on Tuesday.
Speaking to Radio 103 FM, Feldman listed the apparent similarities between Zygier and the other alleged Prisoner X.
"There are several characteristics," Feldman said. "They are our flesh and blood and they are the flesh and blood of the same clandestine organization they belonged to."
Speaking to Army Radio, Feldman said: "One, they are both Israelis. Two, they worked for a security agency and had the highest level of security clearance. Three, and this is important, their activities point to a security failure that essentially facilitated their very transgressions."
Feldman added that the second Prisoner X "is a member of the secret defense establishment, [and] his actions represent a terribly severe security breach which as a result, to the best of my knowledge, not only did no one lose their job over, but these people rose to the top of this very organization and the preservation of the secret, contrary to what one might think, which is naïve to think, that it was meant to protect the security of the state -- was actually intended to preserve the reputation of this organization, and to hide the terrible blunders that occurred without supervision from the public."
Describing the second Prisoner X's alleged transgressions, Feldman said they are considerably more severe in nature than those allegedly committed by Zygier.
"They are much more serious, they are far more sensational and much more fascinating," he said.
"This is an affair that points to failures that are much more severe than the failures by the defense establishment in the case of Ben Zygier. When I heard the story, as an Israeli citizen, I was simply stunned," said Feldman.
MK Miri Regev (Likud), chairwoman of the Knesset's Internal Affairs Committee, called a meeting on Tuesday, attended by the heads of the security agencies and Israel Prison Service, who were asked to report on the matter.
Regev said: "We all need to learn from this case. Sometimes the attempts to hide [information] can harm and be detrimental to Israel's image."
MK Gila Gamliel (Likud) requested to convene one of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense subcommittees, due to the sensitive internal nature of the information.
Meretz Chairwoman MK Zehava Gal-On said she would demand an urgent plenum discussion about "the government's culture of lies." Gal-On accused Aharonovitch of submitting a "false report" before the Knesset plenum by saying there were "no unnamed prisoners in the State of Israel."
Aharonovitch responded by saying that such prisoners do not exist in Israel.
"In the State of Israel there is proper supervision, strict accordance to the law and procedures; and yes, there is also great concern for the security of the state, concern when addressed must sometimes involve a great deal of secrecy."
MK Nachman Shai (Labor) said the news of "another prisoner held in conditions like [Zygier's] strengthens the need for the state comptroller to conduct a thorough and comprehensive investigation. The affair raised many questions that have not been answered. The thought that other prisoners are held in similar conditions is chilling and frightening. Only the state comptroller has the tools to investigate this."
The news of a second Prisoner X came to light on Tuesday following the publication of documents by the Central District Magistrates' Court, after media outlets requested the release of the protocols from the Zygier investigation.
In one clause of the report, the attorney-general touched on the procedures in place for supervising prisoners held in maximum security wards, and said there are clear steps for the supervision of prisoners in wards 13 (where Zygier was held) and 15. Neither the court nor the state censor noticed or removed the reference to Ward 15, nor did they appraise the relevant institutions of the need to keep the apparent news of at least one other Prisoner X (in Ward 15) a secret.
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