Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu Released After 18 Years

Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was released from prison this morning in Israel after serving 18 years for revealing to the world that the country had a nuclear arsenal. For more than 11 of those 18 years, Vanunu was kept in solitary confinement.
He walked out of the Shikma prison in the coastal town of Ashkelon flashing a peace sign and waved to cheering supporters. At an impromptu press conference, Vanunu said he was proud of what he did and described what he called "very cruel and barbaric treatment" at the hands of Israeli intelligence and the military.

Vanunu said Israel's 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. He said his message to these forces was "You didn't succeed to break me, you didn't succeed to make me crazy." He said his case was proof that "you cannot break the human spirit."

Now that he has been released from prison, Vanunu faces what his supporters call draconian restrictions placed on him by the Israeli government. The restrictions derive from emergency rules inherited by Israel from the 1940s British mandate over Palestine. Among them:

Vanunu will have to register to live in an Israeli city of his choice, he will have to give notice to the authorities if he wishes to travel to another city, he will not be allowed to leave Israel for 6 months, a rule that could be extended indefinitely. Vanunu is forbidden to contact foreigners either by phone or in person and he will not be allowed to go within 100 meters of any embassy, visit any port of entry, come within 300 meters of any international boundary and he may not be allowed to worship in a church of his choice.

Here is some of what Vanunu said today right after he walked out of Shikma prison.


Mordechai Vanunu, Israel's nuclear whistleblower speaking to the press just minutes after he was released from his 18-year prison sentence.
Mordechai Vanunu worked as a nuclear technician at Dimona, Israel's secret nuclear installation from 1976 to 1985. He worked there at a time when Israel was insisting it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What Vanunu discovered is that Israel was secretly developing an extensive nuclear program, hiding its existence from the Israeli people and parliament, and the world.

The Dimona facility where Vanunu worked harbored an underground plutonium separation plant operated in strictest secrecy. As the years went by Vanunu grew increasingly troubled as he realized his work was part of Israel's nuclear bomb program. In 1985, before leaving Dimona, he took extensive photographs inside the factory.

Traveling through Asia with the film in his backpack, Vanunu made his way to Sydney, Australia, where he converted to Christianity and joined an Anglican church social justice community where he shared the story of his nuclear background. The London Sunday Times, learned of his story and sent a reporter to Sydney. The newspaper then flew Vanunu to England, where his photos and facts were further checked by British scientists familiar with nuclear weapons. Vanunu's story, published October 5, 1986, gave the world its first authoritative confirmation that Israel had become a major nuclear weapons power, with material for as many as 200 nuclear warheads of advanced design. But days before the story was published, on September 30, 1986, Vanunu was lured to Rome by a female Mossad agent, where he was kidnapped, drugged and put on an Israeli cargo vessel. In Israel, he was charged with treason and espionage. His trial was conducted in total secrecy and he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Audio:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/21/1538214