Israeli whistle-blower back in trouble...
Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli who infamously disclosed his country’s secret nuclear weapons programme to the UK Press has just been convicted of violating the terms of his release and may be heading back to prison.
The former nuclear technician began working at Israel’s secret nuclear facility at Dimona, in the Negev desert, in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s he secretly took photos inside the Dimona facility and gave them to the Sunday Times, which published them and enlightened the world as to Israel’s nuclear programme.
The leaking of the photos triggered off a narrative that's straight out of a Hollywood action film. As anyone knows; the Israeli security forces are nothing to be trifled with and the second that Vanunu went public with the nuclear secrets he was a marked man. Vanunu stayed in the UK after going public and Israel, ever aware of diplomatic intricacies, were wary of kidnapping him from Britain, not wanting to upset Margaret Thatcher's government. Instead of striking in Britain, Mossad carried out a “honey pot” move; they sent a female agent to lure Mr Vanunu from London to Rome, where more Mossad agents were waiting to kidnap him and take him out of Italy and back to Israel. He was convicted of treason and espionage in 1988.
He spent 18 years behind bars but was released in 2004 with a strict set of restrictions as to what he can and cannot do. He was arrested last year and charged with three counts of violating his release. The Israeli court system announced on Monday that he had been convicted of one of those three counts; meeting with 2 US citizens in Jerusalem in 2013 without permission from the authorities.
He was cleared of two other counts which are said to relate to moving apartments without permission and giving an interview to an Israeli TV channel. An Israeli spokesperson said that the latest conviction was actually made in secret in mid-January but was only made public on Monday. He will appear back in court in March for sentencing.
Since 2004 Vanunu has already been briefly jailed twice for similar violations. Since his release he has gone on record to say that his persecution at the hands of Israeli authorities continues. He is banned from leaving the country and is unable to join his wife, a Norwegian theology professor who lives in Oslo. Mr Vanunu converted from Judaism to Christianity in the 1980s and says that Israel has been even harsher on him since be converted.
