Extreme right wing MK Miri Regev (Likud / Yisrael Beytenu) called Wednesday for criminal charges to be filed against three Knesset Members who exposed the “Prisoner X” affair in the Knesset plenum, thus using their parliamentary immunity to circumvent a gag order imposed by the Chief Military Censor. Regev asked the Attorney General and the Knesset Officer to immediately launch an investigation against MKs Dov Khenin (Hadash), Ahmad Tibi (Raam-Taal) and Zehava Galon (Meretz) and remove their immunity.

 “MKs cannot be above the law,” Regev wrote in her Facebook account. She added that she asked the Attorney General to find out how the Prisoner X affair was leaked to the MKs. “I also asked him to check why the MKs violated the gag order.” This is not a matter of stifling speech,” she added, “but an attempt to preserve state security in an era of advanced communications and technology.”  In the past Regev was Head of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and Chief Military Censor herself.

Ben Zygier in Israeli army uniform (Photo: SMH)

Another extreme right wing MK Moti Yogev (Jewish Home) also attacked MK Khenin for using the Knesset podium Tuesday to bring up the case of the mysterious death of an Australian citizen secretly held in an Israeli prisonץ “Extreme Left-wing Knesset members took advantage last night of an opportunity to harm the security of Israel. While there is room for criticism one must realize that there are certain issues that most Israeli citizens do not want to know about and they place their trust in the security system” Yogev said.

Former Foreign Minister, Ivette (Avigdor) Lieberman, told Army Radio “From what I understand there was another attempt here to undermine the State’s security. Once and again, these people try to cause damage, try to justify the enemy. These people also express solidarity with the enemy at a time of war.” In another interview on Israel Radio, Lieberman reiterated the accusations, saying “unfortunately, we see these attempts by a number of Knesset members, especially those who identify with terror organizations or some of them, some of them at least clearly represent the terror organization in the Israeli Knesset, who repeatedly try to undermine Israel’s security.”

After over two years of a complete media embargo, the comprehensive gag order placed on the case of “Prisoner X,” now known as Ben Zygier/Alon has been partially lifted on Wednesday night.  The Israeli authorities’ official statement in the matter makes no mention of Zygier’s name, but it does admit – for the first time – that a man held in a maximum security prison died while in Israel’s custody and that the death was ruled a suicide. The official statement cleared for publication only a few details: “For security reasons, the prisoner was held under a pseudonym.”

 Gideon Levy, a well-know journalist (“Haaretz”) wrote on Thursday: “Many thanks to Australian television, which has reminded us of what a dark state we are living in. Many thanks to the three Israel-hating members of the Knesset – Zehava Galon (Meretz), Ahmad Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al) and Dov Khenin (Hadash) – for saving its honor. And many thanks to a handful of media outlets and human rights organizations for trying to do their job despite everything.”

The interim Knesset speaker on Wednesday rejected a request by Israel’s security establishment to keep the story of an Australian-Israeli’s top secret imprisonment and eventual suicide out of the press, “Maariv” reported on Thursday. MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) told the paper that “sources in the defense establishment” asked him to impose a gag order on inquiries made in the Knesset by MKs Khenin, Galon and Tibi into the top-secret detention of an Australian national known as “Prisoner X” as later identified in the Australian press as Ben Zygier. “They called me at 3:30 a.m. and asked me one question — would I be prepared to gag the statements made by members of Knesset in the plenum,” he told “Maariv.” Ben-Eliezer said he immediately responded in the negative.

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               MK Khenin are there people in prisons whose incarceration is kept secret

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HMN7UmOy18&feature=player_embeddedvv