The Ottomans used it at various times as a government building, prison, army barracks, and arms warehouse.
On June 17, 1930, Fuad Hijazi, ‘Ata Al-Zeer, and Mohammad Khaleel Jamjoum who participated in the incidents of 1929 were executed there by hanging by the British authorities.
On April 16, 1947, Dov Gruner and the three men (Yechiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi and Eliezer Kashani) captured by the British 6th Airborne Division were hanged in Acre Prison to become the first post war ‘martyrs’ of the Irgun.
Dov Gruner in a broadcast declared the British Army and Administration to be ‘criminal organizations’.
A room in the prison was occupied for some months by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, and members of his family, who were exiled to Ottoman Syria in 1868.