- JERUSALEM -- An Israeli who
revealed that his country was developing nuclear weapons has repeated his
demand that they should be destroyed, just as he is due to be released
from jail.
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- Mordechai Vanunu startled the world with claims in 1986
that the Israelis' Dimona nuclear power plant, where he worked, has churned
out hundreds of warheads.
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- Five days before The Sunday Times published his claims
Mr Vanunu was captured by Israeli secret agents. Subsequently found guilty
of espionage, his case became a cause cÈlËbre for anti-nuclear
campaigners.
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- More than 100 well wishers, including Bruce Kent, the
vice-president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the actress Susannah
York, and the Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Colin Breed, will be on hand
to greet him when he leaves jail tomorrow.
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- In a taped interview broadcast in Israel last night he
repeated his claim that the Dimona should be destroyed and compared it
to the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq that Israel bombed in 1981.
-
- The tape of the interview with two intelligence agents,
in which Mr Vanunu denies he betrayed his country, or that he has fresh
secrets to reveal, was recorded several weeks ago and leaked by an Israeli
official to a television network apparently in the hope of increasing his
unpopularity among Israelis.
-
- Attempts were made by Mr Vanunu's lawyers to stop the
broadcast on the grounds that it was an unethical use of an intelligence
interrogation.
-
- According to transcripts published in two Israeli newspapers
yesterday Mr Vanunu said in the interview that the United States and Europe
know everything they need to know about Israel's nuclear program. Mr Vannu
said: "As for myself, I just want to repeat the things I already said
and that were published."
-
- The transcripts quote Mr Vanunu as suggesting that the
Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet will have difficulty monitoring him
and that he will have a computer once he is out of jail.
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- Mr Vanunu said he hoped the debate over Israel's nuclear
program - the existence of which has never been officially admitted by
Israel - would be revived, and that he was disappointed that Israel hadn't
come under greater pressure to dismantle Dimona. "I want them to take
the reactor, more than that, I want them to destroy the reactor, as they
destroyed the reactor in Iraq," he added.
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- After his release, Mr Vanunu will be prevented from travelling
abroad for a year and, for at least six months, he will not be allowed
to contact foreigners, enter foreign embassies or approach border crossings.
He has been ordered not to discuss his work at the nuclear reactor or the
circumstances of his capture.
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- Mr Vanunu plans to appeal to the Supreme Court if the
restrictions are not rescinded.
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- The journalist Uri Dan, a long time associate of Ariel
Sharon, the Prime Minister, supported the restrictions on Mr Vanunu and
said he should be "treated as a traitor. He is a traitor".
-
- Accusing Mr Vanunu of having acted out of "greed",
Mr Dan said: "Only in our generous, human rights loving country is
a zero like this a hero in the eyes of some politicians, manipulators and
journalists."
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=513245
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