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Mordechai Vanunu
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Mordechai Vanunu , born in Marrakech, Morocco on 14 October, 1954 is an Israeli former nuclear technician who revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy and kidnapped by Israeli agents. He was transported to Israel and convicted of treason.
Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement.
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Mordechai Vanunu , born in Marrakech, Morocco on 14 October, 1954 is an Israeli former nuclear technician who revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy and kidnapped by Israeli agents. He was transported to Israel and convicted of treason.
Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been briefly arrested several times for violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He says he has been persecuted by the authorities in Israel because of his conversion to Christianity, saying "I want to tell those who say I am a traitor, I suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian."
In 2007 Vanunu was sentenced to six months in prison for violating terms of his parole. The sentence was considered unusual even by the prosecution who expected a suspended sentence. In response, Amnesty International issued a press release on 2 July, 2007, stating that "The organisation considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release." Vanunu has been characterized by some as a whistleblower and by others as a traitor.
He is considered by many Europeans as a 'hero of the nuclear age' and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year from 1988 to 2004.
Early and educational life
Vanunu was born in Marrakech, Morocco to a Jewish family; his father was a rabbi. In 1963, at the age of nine, he emigrated under the Law of Return with his parents and the first 4 of his 11 brothers and sisters to Israel. In 1973, he enrolled for a mathematics and physics programme at Tel Aviv University. However extended reserve duty in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and a shortage of funds caused him to break off his studies. Vanunu completed his three years of military service as a sapper in the IDF Combat Engineering Corps, with the rank of first sergeant. After completing his service and starting work at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, Vanunu became a part-time geography and philosophy student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he became critical of many policies of the Israeli government, forming a group called "Campus" with four other Jewish students and five Arab students. Vanunu was also affiliated with a group called "Movement for the Advancement of Peace."
Vanunu graduated from Beersheba University in 1985 with a BA in Philosophy and Geography.
Negev Nuclear Research Center
Between 1976 and 1985, Vanunu was employed as a nuclear plant technician and shift manager at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, an Israeli facility used to develop and manufacture nuclear weapons, located in the Negev Desert south of Dimona. Most worldwide intelligence agencies estimate that Israel developed nuclear weapons as early as the 1960s, but the country has intentionally maintained a "policy of deliberate ambiguity", neither acknowledging nor denying that it possesses the weapons. It was during his employment there that one of the left-wing groups in which Vanunu held membership protested against Israel's 1981 destruction of Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor, which was part of the Iraqi nuclear weapons development programme. The Jerusalem Post stated that Vanunu took active part in these protests, arguing that this showed that he was motivated by antipathy to Israel's policies in his later actions.
It is believed that at Dimona, Vanunu became increasingly troubled about the Israeli nuclear weapons programme on which he worked. When he was laid off from Dimona in 1985, Vanunu left Israel. He arrived in Nepal and considered a conversion to Buddhism, later travelling to Burma and Thailand. In 1986, he travelled to Sydney, Australia. While there, Vanunu lived in a hostel in Kings Cross and worked in odd jobs, first as a hotel dishwasher and later as a taxi driver.
Vanunu began to attend the local church, St. John's, Darlinghurst. There he met the Reverend John McKnight, who worked with the homeless and drug addicts. Vanunu converted to Christianity and was baptized as John Crossman into the Anglican Church of Australia, making him further estranged from his family.
Disclosure, abduction and publication
While in Sydney, he met Peter Hounam, a journalist from The Sunday Times in London. In early September 1986, Vanunu flew to London with Hounam, and in violation of his non-disclosure agreement, revealed to the Sunday Times his knowledge of the Israeli nuclear programme, including photographs he had secretly taken at the Dimona site.
The Sunday Times was wary of being duped after having previously been embarrassed by the Hitler Diaries hoax. As a result, the newspaper insisted on verifying Vanunu's story with leading nuclear weapon experts, including former U.S. nuclear weapons designer Theodore Taylor and former British designer Frank Barnaby, who agreed that Vanunu's story was factual. Vanunu gave detailed descriptions of lithium-6 separation required for the production of tritium, an essential ingredient of fusion-boosted fission bombs. While both experts concluded that Israel might be making such single-stage boosted bombs, Vanunu, whose work experience was limited to material (not component) production, gave no specific evidence that Israel was making two-stage thermonuclear bombs, such as neutron bombs. Vanunu described the plutonium processing used, giving a production rate of about 30 kg per year, and stated that Israel used about 4 kg per weapon. From this information it was possible to estimate that Israel had sufficient plutonium for about 150 nuclear weapons.
Vanunu states in his letters that he intended to share the money received from the newspaper (for the information) with the Anglican Church of Australia. Apparently, frustrated by the delay while Hounam was completing his research, Vanunu approached a rival newspaper, the tabloid Sunday Mirror, whose owner was Robert Maxwell. In 1991, a self-described former Mossad officer or government translator named Ari Ben-Menashe alleged that Maxwell had tipped off the Mossad, possibly through British secret services, about Vanunu. It is also possible that they were alerted by enquiries made to Israelis or to the Israeli Embassy in London by Sunday Mirror journalists.
The Israeli government decided to detain Vanunu, but determined that to avoid harming its good relationship with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and not to risk confrontation with British Intelligence, Vanunu should be persuaded to leave UK territory under his own volition. Masquerading as an American tourist called "Cindy", Israeli Mossad agent Cheryl Bentov befriended Vanunu, and on 30 September persuaded him to fly to Rome with her on a holiday. Once in Rome, Mossad agents illegally drugged and carried him to Israel on a freighter, beginning what was to be more than a decade of solitary confinement in Israeli prisons.
On 5 October, the Sunday Times published the information it had revealed, and estimated that Israel had produced more than 100 nuclear warheads.
Imprisonment
Vanunu was put on trial in Israel on charges of treason and espionage. The trial, held in secret, took place in the District Court in Jerusalem before Chief Justice Eliahu Noam and judges Zvi Tal and Shalom Brener. He was not permitted contact with the media but he wrote the details of his abduction (or "hijacking" as he put it) on the palm of his hand, and while being transported he held his hand against the van's window so that waiting journalists could get the information.
On 27 February, 1988, the court sentenced him to 18 years' imprisonment from the date of his capture. The Israeli government refused to release the transcript of the court case until, after the threat of legal action, it agreed to let censored extracts be published in Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper, in late 1999.
The death penalty in Israel is restricted to special circumstances. In 2004, former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit told Reuters that the option of extrajudicial execution was considered in 1986, but rejected because "Jews don't do that to other Jews."
The Israeli government kept him in near total isolation for more than 11 years, allegedly out of concern that he might reveal more Israeli nuclear secrets and because he was still bound by the contract that swore him to secrecy on the subject. While in prison, he refused psychiatric treatment.
Many critics argue that Vanunu had no additional information that would pose a real security threat to Israel, and that the Israeli government's real motivation is a desire to avoid political embarrassment and financial complications for itself and allies such as the United States. By not acknowledging possession of nuclear weapons, Israel avoids a US legal prohibition on funding countries which proliferate weapons of mass destruction. Such an admission would prevent Israel from receiving, as it does now, more than $3 billion each year in military and other aid from Washington.
Ray Kidder, then a senior American nuclear scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has said:
His last appeal against his conviction, to the Supreme Court of Israel in 1990, failed.
While in prison, Vanunu says, he took part in small acts of rebellion, such as refusing to talk with the guards, reading only English-language newspapers, and watching only BBC television. "He is the most stubborn, principled, and tough person I have ever met," said his lawyer, Avigdor Feldman.
Release and asylum applications
In 2004, shortly before his scheduled release, Vanunu remained defiant under interrogation by the security service, Shin Bet. In recordings of the interview made public after his release, he is heard saying "I am neither a traitor nor a spy, I only wanted the world to know what was happening." He also said, "We don't need a Jewish state. There needs to be a Palestinian state. Jews can, and have lived anywhere, so a Jewish State is not necessary."
Vanunu was released from prison on 21 April 2004. He indicated a desire to completely dissociate himself from Israel, initially refusing to speak in Hebrew, and planning to move to Europe or the US as soon as the Israeli government would permit him to do so.
A number of restrictions were placed upon Vanunu by Israeli authorities, who stated their reason was fear of him spreading further state secrets and that he is still bound by his non-disclosure agreement. These stipulate that he must inform the authorities of his place of residence and his movements between cities, and may not leave the country. These restrictions were extended to April 2006, and then April 2007, due to his violations of court rulings. While a court found in 2005 that he should be free to go to the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the 2006 restrictions explicitly forbade him to visit either, reversing the court's initial decision.
In addition, Vanunu is not allowed to meet with foreigners or contact them by phone or e-mail, enter or approach any embassy, visit any port of entry, or come within 500 metres of any international border crossing.
Vanunu says that his knowledge is now outdated and he has nothing more he could possibly reveal that is not already widely known. Despite the stated restrictions, since his release Vanunu has freely given interviews to the foreign press, including a live phone interview to BBC Radio Scotland.
On 22 April 2004, Vanunu asked the Norwegian government for a Norwegian passport and asylum in Norway for "humanitarian reasons," according to Norwegian news agencies. He also sent applications to other countries, and stated that he would accept asylum in any country because he fears for his life. Former conservative Norwegian Prime Minister Kåre Willoch asked the conservative government to give Vanunu asylum, and the University of Tromsø offered him a job. On 9 April, 2008, it was revealed that Vanunu's request for asylum in Norway was rejected in 2004 by Erna Solberg, Minister of Local Government in the coalition government lead by then Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik. While the Norwegian foreigner directorate (State Department) (UDI) had been prepared to grant Vanunu asylum, it was suddenly decided that the application could not be accepted because Vanunu had applied for it from outside of the borders of Norway. An unclassified document revealed that Solberg and the government considered that extracting Vanunu from Israel might be seen as an action against Israel and thereby unfitting the Norwegian government's tradition role as a friend of Israel and as a political player in the Middle East. Since the information has been revealed, Solberg has rejected criticism and defended her decision.
Vanunu's application for asylum in Sweden has also been rejected on the grounds that Sweden, like Norway does not accept absentee asylum applications. He also unsuccessfully requested asylum in the Republic of Ireland, which would require him to first be allowed to leave Israel.
In 2006, Microsoft was accused of helping Israeli police to obtain documents incriminating Vanunu.
On 22 February 2006 in a Jerusalem court it was revealed that Israeli police had led Microsoft to hand over all the details of Vanunu's Hotmail email account by alluding that he was being investigated for espionage. This happened before a court order had been obtained
Vanunu wrote:
International calls for his freedom of movement and freedom of speech made by organizations supporting Vanunu have been either ignored or rejected by Israel.
On 15 May 2008, the Norwegian Lawyer's Petition for Vanunu was released. It calls on the Norwegian government to urgently implement a three-point action plan within the framework of international and Norwegian law and allow Vanunu to travel to, live and work in Norway.
Arrests and hearings
Vanunu was denied parole at a hearing in May 1998. Five years later, parole was again refused. At this parole hearing, Vanunu's lawyer Avigdor Feldman maintained that his client had no more secrets and should be freed. But the prosecution argued that the imminent war with Iraq would preclude his release. After the hearing Mr Feldman said:"The prosecutor said that if Vanunu were released, the Americans would probably leave Iraq and go after Israel and Israel's nuclear weapons - which I found extremely ridiculous." The real force blocking Vanunu's release who had been known only as "Y" was exposed in 2001 as Yehiyel Horev, the head of Mossad's nuclear and military secrets branch. Following his release in 2004, Vanunu appeared in Israeli courts on numerous occasions on charges of having violated the terms of his release. He was arrested and detained for attempting to go to Bethlehem, on at least one occasion his room in St. George's Cathedral was raided by policemen and his belongings were confiscated.
- On 11 November 2004, Vanunu was arrested by the International Investigations Unit of the Israeli police at around 9am while eating breakfast. The arrest stemmed from an ongoing probe examining suspicions of leaking national secrets and violating legal rulings since his release from prison. Police officers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns entered into the walled compound of St. George's Anglican Church in East Jerusalem, where Vanunu had been renting a room since his release. Police removed papers and a computer from his room. After a few hours' detention, Vanunu was put under house arrest, which was to last seven days.
- On 24 December 2004 in a vehicle marked as belonging to the foreign press, Vanunu was apprehended by Israeli Police while he was attempting to enter the West Bank in violation of his release restrictions (see above), allegedly to attend mass at the Church of the Nativity. After posting bail of 50,000 NIS, he was released into five-day house arrest.
- On 26 January 2005 the BBC reported that its Jerusalem deputy bureau chief, Simon Wilson, was banned from Israel after he refused to submit interview material made with Vanunu to Israeli censors. Vanunu gave the interview in violation of court orders. Wilson was allowed to return to Israel on 12 March 2005 after signing an apology letter acknowledging that he defied the law.
- On 17 March 2005 Vanunu was charged with 21 counts of "contravening a lawful direction" (maximum penalty two years' imprisonment per count) and one count of "attempting to contravene a lawful direction."
- On 18 November 2005 Vanunu was arrested at the al-Ram checkpoint north of Jerusalem as he was returning by bus from the West Bank. The Israeli authorities say Vanunu's travel ban includes visits to the Palestinian territories.
- On 13 April 2007 Vanunu was informed that the Israeli government has continued his house arrest in Jerusalem and has renewed all the restrictions against him, for the fourth time and third year of detention in east Jerusalem.
- On 30 April 2007 Vanunu was convicted of violating the order barring foreign contacts and traveling outside Jerusalem.
- In July 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to a further six months imprisonment for speaking to foreigners and traveling to Bethlehem. The court's sentence was unexpected, and even the prosecution expected the court to hand down a suspended sentence, meant solely as a deterrent.Following his sentence, Vanunu commented that his conviction proved that Israel was still ruled, in effect, by the British Mandate because the law under which he was convicted is from that era. "Maybe I need to turn to the Queen or to Tony Blair in order to grant me justice," he said.
- While having dinner at the American Colony in East Jerusalem with a foreigner, Vanunu was arrested for the second time on a Christmas Eve.
- On 7 January 2008, the day before his appeal against the above sentence was to begin, Israel instead re-sentenced him to six months of community service.
- On 19 February 2008 Vanunu wrote: "The court hearing today Feb. 19 was again postponed, because of a small snow here. We are waiting for the next hearing date" which would be "soon." Vanunu's appeal hearing was scheduled to resume on 23 March 2008 but on that date he learned that it was rescheduled to 13 May 2008.
- On 7 April 2008 Vanunu learned that Israel had renewed the restrictions against him for the fifth year. On 9 April 2008 it was reported that Norway had joined Sweden, Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu.
- On 9 April 2008 unclassified documents revealed that the former Norwegian coalition government led by former prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik denied Vanunu asylum in 2004 as a supportive action to the Israeli government.
- On 13 May 2008 Vanunu wrote that although three judges attempted to convince the Government Lawyer to offer community service in East Jerusalem, it was denied. Vanunu's appeal against his six months jail sentence was set to resume on 8 July 2008
- On 15 May 2008 the Norwegian Lawyer's Petition called upon the Norwegian government to urgently implement a three-point action plan within the framework of international and Norwegian law, to grant Vanunu asylum and permission to work and stay in Norway.
- On 8 July 2008 Israeli judges announced that they would delay their decision until September.
- On 23 September 2008 the Jerusalem District Court announced: "In light of (Vanunu's) ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country's security in jeopardy, we believe his sentence should be reduced." Vanunu said his health is fine and that, "The issue is about my right to be free, my right to speak and my right to leave the state."
- In October 2008, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond called for Vanunu's release, saying:
"The Scottish Government is well aware of the campaign by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and supports the lifting of all restrictions imposed on Mr Mordechai Vanunu."
- November 26, 2008:"Vanunu's Supreme Court appeal fighting a three month jail sentence [reduced from six] for speaking to foreigners-who happened to be media-in 2004, is scheduled to be heard in the New Year."
Support, awards and honours
Amnesty International described his treatment as constituting "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment [...] such as is prohibited by international law."
Vanunu received the Right Livelihood Award in 1987, and was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Tromsø in 2001. He was nominated by Joseph Rotblat for the Nobel Peace Prize every year from 1988 to 2004. Former recipients are among the thousands of people and groups with rights to nominate Nobel candidates. The secretive Nobel committee never comments on specific nominations, but members often note that anyone can be nominated. In 2006 there were 191 nominations for the prize.
In 2005 he received the Peace Prize of the Norwegian People (Folkets fredspris). Previous recipients of this prize include Vytautas Landsbergis (1991), Alva Myrdal (1982), Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams.
In September 2004, artist and musician Yoko Ono gave Mordechai Vanunu a peace prize founded in her late husband, John Lennon’s memory.
In December 2004, as a statement of solidarity, he was elected by the students of the University of Glasgow to serve for three years as Rector. On Friday 22 April 2005 he was formally installed in the post, but cannot carry out any of its functions as he is still confined to Israel. Since then The Herald newspaper has launched a campaign for his release.
In March 2009 Vanunu writes to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo: "I am asking the committee to remove my name from the list for this year’s list of nominations. I cannot be part of a list of laureates that includes Simon Peres."
See also
Bibliography
- Black, Ian. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services, Grove Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8021-3286-3
- Cohen, Avner. Israel and the Bomb, New York: Columbia University Press (1999), ISBN 0-231-10483-9
- Cohen, Yoel. The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Dimona & the Bomb. ISBN 0-8419-1432-X
- Fleming, Eileen. Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory ISBN 1432702548.
- Gaffney, Mark. Dimona: The Third Temple? The Story Behind the Vanunu Revelation. ISBN 0-915597-77-2
- Gilling, Tom and John McKnight. Trial and Error — Mordechai Vanunu and Israel's Nuclear Bomb. 1991 Monarch Publications. ISBN 1-85424-129-X
- Hounam, Peter. The Woman from Mossad: The Torment of Mordechai Vanunu. ISBN 1-58394-005-7 paperback edition title: The Woman from Mossad: The Story of Mordechai Vanunu & the Israeli Nuclear Program
- Toscano, Louis. Triple Cross. 1990 Birch Lane Press ISBN 1-55972-028-X
- Spiro, Gideon. Vanunu and the Israeli Bomb.
Documentaries
- - Episode four: Vanunu and the Bomb BBC 2007
- BBC News broadcast 2004-05-30
- - 30 Minutes with Vanunu [WAWA] March 2006
- - 13 Minutes with Vanunu [WAWA] January 2008
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