Defiant Israeli whistleblower walks free after 18 years in jail

[AYOUB]

Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli whistleblower, walked free from jail today 18 years after leaking his country's nuclear secrets to The Sunday Times.

 

 

 

Looking fit and sounding defiant, Vanunu said that he was subject to "cruel and barbaric" treatment during his time in Shikma Prison, in the coastal town of Ashkelon, because of his religion.

 

"I am proud of what I did," Vanunu said, before flashing victory signs and waving to cheering supporters.

 

"I suffered 18 years because I was a Christian. If I was Jewish, I would not have suffered." Raised as an Orthodox Jew he converted to Christianity in the mid-1980s.

 

Flanked by two of his brothers as he held an impromptu news conference, he added that he had no new secrets to reveal.

 

He also called for Israel to open up its Dimona nuclear plant to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and rid itself of nuclear weapons. International experts believe that Israel has produced around 200 nuclear warheads.

 

Vanunu, who has become a hero for the anti-nuclear movement, said: "The whole Middle East is free of nuclear weapons. Israel does not need nuclear weapons," he said.

 

"Open Dimona for inspection. Call Mohammed el-Baradei (the IAEA director general) to inspect it." He also said that there was no need for a Jewish state.

 

Speaking mostly in English - he refused to answer questions in Hebrew because of his treatment by Israel - he said: "I am now ready to start my life."

 

Vanunu said that he now wanted to study history and teach, but his immediate plan was to pray in a Jerusalem church.

 

He said that the Mossad spy agency and the Shin Bet security services tried to rob him of his sanity by keeping him in solitary confinement for nearly 12 years. "I say to the Shabak (Shin Bet), the Mossad, you didn't succeed to break me, you didn't succeed to make me crazy."

 

Asked if he was a hero, he said: "all those who are standing behind me, supporting me ... all are heroes.

 

"I am a symbol of the will of freedom," he said. "You cannot break the human spirit."

 

Supporters released doves into the air ahead of his release and then showered his car with petals as he was driven away from the prison gates.

 

Anti-nuclear weapons activists, including Susannah York, the actress, and Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, were among those gathered outside the prison.

 

However opponents carried banners with slogans such as: "Death to the spy, Death to Vanunu" and booed as he emerged from the prison courtyard. He is still widely perceived as a traitor by the Israeli public.

 

Richard Caseby, managing editor of The Sunday Times, said today that Vanunu is a "genuine whistleblower", not a traitor.

 

Mr Caseby said: "He came to The Sunday Times to tell us about Israeli secret nuclear weapons programmes because he believed it was important for the Israeli people to know what was being done in their name.

 

"He believed it was the proper function of a democracy to have a free and open debate about the state programme for building such weapons."

 

Vanunu told reporters that he wanted to travel to both the United States and Britain, but Israel has imposed restrictions on him because of its concerns that he would reveal more classified information. He will not be allowed to travel abroad for at least a year, or speak with foreigners or approach Israeli ports or borders.

 

There was a last-minute hiccup before his release over his refusal to provide an address to authorities. The Andromeda Hill luxury apartment block in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, has been widely circulated to the media as his new home, but Vanunu may not be heading there because of fears for his safety.

 

Tommy Lapid, Israeli Justice Minister. claimed today that Vanunu was "hell-bent" on doing as much harm as he could.

 

"We will keep an eye on him, we will watch him ... We want to know where he is and we want to know whom he may or may not divulge state secrets," he said.

 

Vanunu leaked details and pictures of Israel's secret nuclear weapons programme to The Sunday Times in 1986. The revelations undercut Israel's long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying its nuclear capability.

 

The former technician at the Dimona nuclear plant in southern Israel was abducted by secret service agents in Italy, smuggled back to Israel and then jailed in 1986.

 

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, said: "Mordechai Vanunu’s release is long overdue.

 

"The Israeli authorities must allow him to exercise his full rights to freedom of movement, association and expression.

 

"He should also be allowed to leave the country if he wishes."

 

Vanunu won an award for defence of freedom of expression last month from Index on Censorship, an international magazine promoting freedom of expression.

 

 

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Mordechai Vanunu: The Sunday Times articles

 

 

 

The Sunday Times' Insight Team was the first to reveal Israel's nuclear secrets to the world after the paper published leaks from Morechai Vanunu. Here is how the newspaper chronicled the story, from Vanunu's original claims, to how he was captured.

 

 

 

Sunday October 5, 1986: Headline: Revealed - the secrets of Israel's nuclear arsenal/ Atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu reveals secret weapons production

 

THE SECRETS of a subterranean factory engaged in the manufacture of Israeli nuclear weapons have been uncovered by The Sunday Times Insight team.

 

Hidden beneath the Negev desert, the factory has been producing atomic warheads for the last 20 years. Now it has almost certainly begun manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons, with yields big enough to destroy entire cities.

 

Information about Israel's capacity to manufacture the bomb come from the testimony of Mordechai Vanunu, a 31-year-old Israeli who worked as a nuclear technician for nearly 10 years in Machon 2 - a top secret, underground bunker built to provide the vital components necessary for weapons production at Dimona, the Israeli nuclear research establishment.

 

Vanunu's evidence has surprised nuclear weapons experts who were approached by Insight to verify its accuracy because it shows that Israel does not just have the atom bomb - which has been long suspected - but that it has become a major nuclear power.

 

Vanunu's testimony and pictures, which have been scrutinised by nuclear experts on both sides of the Atlantic, show that Israel has developed the sophisticated and highly classified techniques needed to build up a formidable nuclear arsenal. They confirm that:

 

Israel now ranks as the world's sixth most powerful nuclear power, afterAmerica, the Soviet Union, Britain France and China - with an arsenal far greater than than those other countries, such as India, Pakistan and South Africa, which have also been suspected of developing nuclear weapons.

 

It has possessed its secret weapons factory for more than two decades, hiding its plutonium extraction processes from spy satellites and independent inspections during the 1960s by burying it beneath an innocuous, little used building.

 

The plant is equipped with French plutonium extracting technology, which transformed Dimona from a civilian research establishment to a bomb production facility. Plutonium production rates amount to 40 kilograms a year, enough to build 10 bombs. In the past six years Israel has added further equipment to make components for thermo-nuclear devices.

 

The 26 megawatt reactor, also built by the French, has been expanded and is probably now operating at 150 megawatts to allow it to extract more plutonium. An ingenious cooling system disguises the output.

 

The nuclear scientists consulted by The Sunday Times are convinced by Vanunu's evidence. They calculate that at least 100 and as many as 200 nuclear weapons of varying destructive power have been assembled - 10 times the previously estimated strength of Israel's nuclear arsenal.

 

The scientists include Theodore Taylor, one of the world's most experienced nuclear weapons experts. He was taught by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and worked on America's first bomb designs. He later went on to head the Pentagon's atomic weapons test programme.

 

Dr Taylor studied the photographs taken by Vanunu inside Dimona and a transcript of his evidence near Washington DC last week. He said: 'There should no longer be any doubt that Israel is, and for at least a decade has been, a fully-fledged nuclear weapons state. The Israeli nuclear weapons programme is considerably more advanced than indicated by any previous report or conjectures of which I am aware. '

 

He added that Vanunu's testimony was entirely consistent with an Israeli capacity to produce 10 nuclear weapons a year that are significantly smaller, lighter and more efficient than the first types of weapons developed by Russia, America, Britain, France or China.

 

Another scientist who authenticated the evidence uncovered by Insight is Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist who worked at Aldermaston, the British nuclear weapons research establishment in Berkshire and who recently retired as the director of the Swedish Institute for Peace Research, which monitors nuclear profileration.

 

'As a nuclear physicist,' says Barnaby 'it was clear to me that details he gave me were scientifically accurate and clearly showed that he had not only worked on these processes but knew the details of the techniques. Also the flow rates through the plant, which he quotes exactly confirm the quantities of plutonium that were being made. '

 

Vanunu says that, despite tight security, he was able to smuggle a camera into Machon 2 and take more than 60 photographs. Insight debriefed him for four weeks and invited Barnaby to interview Vanunu in an attempt to find scientific flaws in his story. 'His testimony is totally convincing,' concluded Barnaby.

 

The assessments of Taylor and Barnaby have been confirmed by other top nuclear scientists who were shown the pictures and detailed evidence. Because they work in sensitive positions in Britain's atomic energy industry and nuclear weapons manufacturing they have asked to remain anonymous.

 

Israel has refused to comment on the evidence. But it has confirmed that Vanunu did work for the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission in Dimona. He was made redundant last November with 180 other Dimona workers during a cost-cutting drive by the establishment. Security men had grown concerned about Vanunu's developing political contacts with West Bank Arab students during a part-time philosophy degree course he was taking at Beersheba University.

 

Israel is a small nation surrouned by hostile Arab states, most of whom have sworn at various times to try to destroy Israel and sweep its people into the sea. Although Israeli conventional forces have been able to hold off Arab attacks, it has always been suspected that the Israelis would want weapons of last resort to protect themselves. Israel would have no difficulty in dropping its nuclear bombs on any of its Arab neighbours.

 

It has been suggested, though never proved, that when Israel was in danger of losing the Yom Kippur War in 1973 after the initial Egyptian attack, the then prime minister, Golda Meir, ordered nuclear devices to be moved to airbases.

 

Last Thursday, a senior US government source at the time, now retired, confirmed the incident to The Sunday Times.

 

Sunday October 12, 1986: Headline: Insight: Disappeared - the man who revealed Israel nuclear-bomb secrets / Disappearance of former atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu

 

CONCERN is growing for the safety of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli who revealed the secrets of his country's nuclear arsenal to The Sunday Times and then disappeared.

 

Vanunu, a 31-year-old technician who worked for 10 years at Israel's nuclear research establishment at Dimona in the Negev desert, has not been seen since he checked out of a London hotel on September 30, five days before his story was published. He had been staying there during the Insight investigation.

 

Police, alerted to Vanunu's disappearance by The Sunday Times, say that they are concerned for his safety because of the political implications of his revelations. However, they stress that he is not wanted for questioning. 'Vanunu has not committed any offence in this country. All we want to know is that he is all right,' said detective inspector David Wood.

 

Vanunu's disappearance has also worried friends and relatives. Their greatest fear is that Vanunu has been kidnapped by Mossad, the Israeli secret service.

 

When Vanunu disappeared he had little money. A contract for the book rights to his story had been agreed with The Sunday Times. But he never signed it. He has not been paid for his story. But he left behind his testimony and his photographs and negatives.

 

Last week, two friends of Vanunu flew to London to search for him. The Rev John McKnight, vicar of the Anglican church Vanunu attended in Australia, arrived from Sydney on Thursday. He became a close friend of Vanunu when the Israeli converted from Judaism.

 

McKnight and his congregation were so concerned by reports of Vanunu's disappearance that they raised the money for the vicar's flight. McKnight thinks that Vanunu is frightened. 'If he wants to contact me, I'm here,' he said. 'He can contact me by telephoning my parish in Australia and reversing the charges. '

 

The Sunday Times first heard of Vanunu through Oscar Guerrero, a Colombian journalist living in Australia. Guerrero turned out to be unreliable. He exaggerated Vanunu's story until it sounded barely credible. But when Insight met the Israeli technician, he corrected Guerrero's story and instead gave a detailed account of his work at Dimona which convinced scientists.

 

Vanunu came to England on September 12. He had already talked to a Sunday Times reporter in Australia but was flown to London for further debriefing by nuclear experts. Vanunu was concerned for his security. He knew that if his story was published, Israel would brand him a traitor - and, if he returned, would face up to 15 years in prison.

 

He stayed in a number of locations with members of the Insight team. The story required painstaking research and checks over a number of weeks and Vanunu grew tired of waiting. He decided he wanted to see more of London on his own.

 

Then on September 28, a story appeared in the Sunday Mirror that worried Vanunu, Guerrero had come to London and went to the Sunday Mirror with copies of Vanunu's pictures and his own garbled version of Dimona's secrets. The Sunday Mirror disbelieved Guerrero's fragile tale and exposed him, but printed a picture of him with Vanunu.

 

Vanunu, shocked, felt the article threatened his security and believed that The Sunday Times might not use his story because our checks were taking so long. He insisted that he wanted a two-day break alone.

 

After checking out of his London hotel on September 30. Vanunu phoned Insight but would not reveal his location. He was informed that publication was now set for Sunday, October 5, and he agreed to return to London on Thursday, October 2. Nobody has heard from him since.

 

Sunday November 16, 1986: Headline: Insight: Israel PM ordered hunt for Vanunu / Missing nuclear technician

 

A FEMALE working for Israeli intelligence was used to trap Mordechai Vanunu, the man who leaked his country's nuclear weapons' secrets to The Sunday Times, according to highly-placed sources in Israel.

 

The Sunday Times has also established from other senior sources in Israel that it was Shimon Peres, then Israel's prime minister and now its foreign secretary, who gave the order to the head of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, in September that Vanunu should be captured and returned to Israel.

 

Our sources indicate that Peres did not detail the methods to be employed by Mossad, but he did make a key proviso: 'Don't do anything to embarrass Mrs Thatcher's government. ' Peres is known to value Mrs Thatcher's pro-Israeli stance.

 

The Sunday Times Insight team has reconstructed Vanunu's last days of freedom in London. The full story appears on page 25. Insight has discovered evidence to suggest that the female agent used to lure Vanunu into a trap could have been a mysterious woman who used the name 'Cindy'. She was blonde, plump, heavily made-up, in her mid-20s and 5 foot 8 inches tall.

 

Vanunu met her in London the day after The Sunday Times informed the Israeli embassy in London that it proposed to publish his revelations. Six days later, on September 30, Vanunu disappeared. Last Sunday the Israeli government admitted that he was in jail in Israel.

 

Vanunu himself was convinced he had picked Cindy up, not the other way round. He ignored warnings that she might not be what she claimed, which was an American cosmetic trainee on a European tour.

 

They dined out and visited art galleries and cinemas together, and they were due to meet again on the night before the nuclear technician vanished. Since then she has never been traced, despite police and Sunday Times enquiries. The assumption is that she lured Vanunu offshore, where he was seized by Mossad agents.

 

Peres was prime minister until October 14, when he handed over the office to Yitzhak Shamir under the coalition government's 'rotation' agreement. Shamir finally admitted last week that Vanunu was in Israeli custody, but claimed that the nuclear technician left Britain 'of his own volition' and that his departure involved 'no violation of British laws'. Cindy's role could have been crucial in Mossad's efforts to lure Vanunu out of the country of his own volition.

 

Tim Renton, a Foreign Office minister, told the Commons on Friday there was no evidence of Israeli misdeeds in the UK. But the Israeli government has yet to give a full account of exactly how Vanunu ended up in an Israeli jail. Yesterday Shamir told Israeli radio: 'I hope there won't be any more bother with this matter. '

 

Others in his cabinet, however, think that so much international pressure is building up that Israel will not be able to stay silent.

 

Vanunu's prison is almost certainly the small, top-security jail at Ashkelon, south of Tel Aviv. Prisoners there wear no indentification numbers and are not supposed to be known by name, even to their warders.

 

The Sunday Times has received a description of the cell in which he is being kept, although its exact location is still a state secret. He was, moved last Sunday to a cell, four metres long and 2 1/4 metres wide, with white plastered stone walls.

 

The only light comes from a small, barred, but openable window in the steel door. The cell contains a bed, two tables, a chair, a cupboard with book shelves, eating utensils and a device for heating water. Behind a stone partition there is a shower and toilet. Outside exercise is allowed between 11am and 1pm.

 

He has seen his lawyer, Amnon Zichroni, several times most recently last Tuesday. Zichroni has supplied him with books mainly on philosophy or literature in English. The lawyer said: 'He asked me to bring a New Testament; also a book about the Israeli Knesset. '

 

Since he was first allowed newspapers last Tuesday Vanunu has been disturbed by the intensity of the 'lynch campaign' conducted in parts of the Israeli press. Zichroni has now appealed to editors to stop. 'He has been examined by a doctor and is in good health and mentally stable. '

 

 

Sunday November 23, 1986: Headline: Vanunu faces treason charge for bomb leak

 

MORDECHAI VANUNU, the man who helped The Sunday Times to reveal the secrets of Israel's nuclear armoury, is expected to face the most serious charges possible under Israeli law this week. According to Ministry of Justice sources, he will be accused of both aggravated espionage and treason.

 

In principle, treason is punishable by death in Israel, though the sentence has rarely been imposed. The only case in which it was carried out was that of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal. The normal alternative is life imprisonment, usually 20 years.

 

Because of the sensitivity of the case, both the prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and the foreign minister, Shimon Peres, will be consulted before the charges are brought. But the unexpected hardening of the government line is a significant setback for Vanunu. As late as last week, justice officials were indicating that the indictment would probably be limited to aggravated espionage, carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years.

 

Vanunu has been intensively questioned since his still-unexplained return from Britain to Israel last month. But his lawyer, Amnon Zichroni, says that there is no basis for reports that he has been tortured or ill-treated. At the request of the state prosecuting team, the interrogators have mainly focused on the technician's non-newspaper contacts.

 

They want to know the names and background of anyone he spoke to about his work during the nine years he was employed at the top-secret Dimona nuclear research centre, also the identity of anyone to whom he might have passed information after he left the plant in October last year.

 

The fear, according to security sources, is twofold: that he might have given compromising material to Arab or Palestinian sources, and that he might have been in touch with Soviet agents.

 

It is known that Vanunu had strong Arab sympathies, took part in pro-Palestinian rallies, and was in contact with the Israeli Communist party.

 

When questioned by The Sunday Times, Vanunu denied passing information to any foreign power. He described one occasion after he left Israel when he passed through Moscow airport en route for Thailand. In his baggage he had two rolls of film which showed some of the most secret areas of Dimona. But he was no more than a transit passenger in Moscow and his films were not developed until he reached Australia later.

 

Sunday December 28, 1986: Headline: Vanunu left Heathrow under his own name

 

MORDECHAI VANUNU, the Israeli technician who leaked his country's nuclear bomb secrets to The Sunday Times, bought a return ticket to Rome in his own name and boarded a British Airways flight at Heathrow five days before the Insight team revealed his story.

 

Despite repeated warnings to stay in safe accommodation and to refrain from using documentation which could identify him, Vanunu insisted on 'disappearing for a few days' with a woman known only as Cindy who he had met in London.

 

Insight has established from flight records that Vanunu booked the return ticket on BA flight 504 to Rome on Tuesday, September 30 although it is not yet known if he was travelling with anyone else. That morning he booked out of his hotel having collected a telephone message left at reception from the woman called Cindy. The message said: 'I am waiting where we arranged to meet. '

 

At 11am Vanunu telephoned the Insight team. He refused to give his location but promised he would make contact again the next day and return later in the week.

 

His plane left Heathrow at 2.10pm and landed at Rome at 6.38pm. Within two hours of clearing customs there, Vanunu was picked up by Mossad, the Israeli secret service.

 

The Italian government has ordered a full police inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Vanunu's kidnapping.

 

The incident is politically embarrassing in Italy. Two parliamentary deputies have protested at 'the apparent impunities with which foreign intelligence forces act on Italian soil'.

 

The seizing of Vanunu could also make nonsense of a joint anti-terrorist agreement on the exchange of intelligence information, signed by Italy and Israel in November.

 

Vanunu's trial was scheduled to start in Jerusalem this morning but will propable be adjourned because the defence case is still incomplete. Vanunu was kidnapped on the orders of Shimon Peres, then the prime minister, and taken back to Israel.

 

The trial is being held in camera, and the only other people present will be Vanunu's lawyer, the celebrated civil-rights defender Amnon Zichroni, and the state prosecutor Ouzi Hason.

 

Tight security was planned for his journey to court from the civil prison at Ashkelon, 50 miles away. The military and civil police officers guarding him planned to handcuff Vanunu and tape his mouth to prevent him passing or shouting messages to journalists as he did last Sunday when he revealed he had been kidnapped in Rome.

 

Although the trial is expected to last several weeks, both sides want more time to prepare their case.

 

Vanunu is charged with two offences under Israeli law. The first, assisting the enemy in its war (against Israel), is regarded as treason against the state and is punishable by death or life imprisonment - 25 years.

 

However, the death penalty has not been used since 1962 when Adolf Eichmann was tried and executed for his crimes against the Jewish race during the second world war. A second, lesser charge which also carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment is passing secrets to the enemy with the intention of harming the security of Israel.

 

It is theoretically possible for the sentences to run consecutively, however Zichroni said last week that such a harsh sentence is unlikely.