“[Zygier] may well have been about to blow the whistle, but he never got the chance,“ an Australian security official with knowledge of the case told Fairfax Media yesterday.

Sources in Canberra are insistent that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was not informed by its Israeli counterparts of the precise nature of the espionage allegations against Mr Zygier. However, it is understood that the former Melbourne law graduate had been in contact with Australian intelligence.