Dirani -- a senior figure in Amal, a now-defunct Lebanese militia, who was seized by Israeli commandos in 1994 -- was assumed to know the location of a missing airman, Ron Arad, whose plane went down over Lebanon eight years earlier.
Dirani claimed he was left naked for his first month in detention and was sexually abused repeatedly by his interrogators.
When Dirani appeared in court in 2004, he entered walking with great difficulty and aided by a cane. He told the judge of his experience of torture: "I prayed that I'd die."
After Zahavi was dismissed from military intelligence, he joined the immigration police and later moved into police intelligence. He is reported to have taken up his new post in the past two months.
The recent meeting with Siyam suggests that he is likely to bring an uncompromising approach to his role as a liaison with Jerusalem's Palestinians.
Siyam said Zahavi spent most of their meeting shouting at him, and warning that a demolition order would be drawn up for Siyam's house if he continued his political activities. Zahavi also threatened to get him fired from his job.
Although Israel claims to have closed Facility 1391, there are suspicions it and possibly other secret prisons are still in operation. In May last year the United Nations Committee Against Torture called for the location of 1391 to be identified and the prison inspected.
No bar to promotion
Zahavi is only the latest example of a security official accused of violent crimes against Palestinians later being placed in a sensitive post.
Gavriel Dahan: A lieutenant in the border police, Dahan was found guilty of carrying out a "manifestly illegal" order to shoot dead Israeli-Palestinian citizens arriving at an improvised checkpoint in 1956. In total, 47 civilians were killed at Kafr Qassem. Dahan was later appointed adviser on Arab affairs in the mixed city of Ramle.
Ehud Yatom: In the infamous Bus 300 affair in 1984, Yatom admitted using a rock to smash the skulls of two bound Palestinian teenagers who had hijacked a bus full of Israelis. Yatom was later pardoned. In 2001 prime minister Ariel Sharon appointed him his counter-terrorism adviser, though the supreme court ruled him unfit for the post. He was elected to the parliament in 2003.
Benzi Sau: A state commission of inquiry harshly criticised Sau, northern commander of the border police, for his role in the fatal shootings of 13 unarmed Palestinian citizens in 2000. The panel recommended he be denied promotion for four years. In that time he was promoted twice, eventually becoming head of the national border police.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
