After an embarrassing week of revelations about Israel’s ultra-secretive security agency Mossad, the Israeli government is compensating the surviving family of "Prisoner X", the Melbourne man who was found hanged to death in his jail cell in a secret prison near Tel Aviv.

Ben Zygier has parents in Melbourne and a wife in Israel.  None have come forward as the story of his death has gained steamed through the week.  The Haaretz newspaper is reporting that Israel offered them hundreds of thousands of dollars in an agreement signed several weeks ago.

That we know of Ben Zygier at all is a failure by Mossad, which employed the dual citizen before arresting him and imprisoning him incommunicado.  Not even Zygier’s jailers knew his name as he was referred to as “Prisoner X”.  Even the charges were kept top-secret.  But the security dam began to burst after a series of revelations in the Australian media.

Opposition lawmakers and human rights advocates say such secrecy and stifled access to open justice has no place in a Democracy.

The lawyer for Ben Zygier is suggesting he was driven to suicide by the Mossad’s interrogation.  But a human rights lawyer who was eventually allowed a brief visit with Zygier says he has doubts about the official ruling of suicide.