Nuclear whistleblower jailed for six months
An Israeli court today ordered nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to return to jail for six months for violating an order restricting his contact with foreigners.
Vanunu, a former technician at Israel’s nuclear plant near the southern town of Dimona, spent 18 years in prison for giving details of the country’s atomic programme to the Sunday Times in 1986.
Upon his release in 2004, Vanunu was banned from leaving the country and talking to foreigners without approval, because Israeli authorities claimed he could still divulge classified information.
A Jerusalem regional court found in April that Vanunu violated 14 counts of those restrictions by holding unauthorised contact with foreigners through the internet and by entering the West Bank.
Today the court sentenced him to six months in jail and a further six months suspended sentence.
Following the conviction, Vanunu said the ruling proved “that Israel is not a democracy”. He pleaded to be allowed to leave the country and “be free”.
Vanunu has 45 days to appeal against the ruling, the court said.
The details divulged by Vanunu in 1986 and published in the Sunday Times led experts to conclude that Israel had the world’s sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds of warheads.
Israel has never acknowledged or denied having a nuclear weapons programme.
