- Title: JERUSALEM/ISRAEL: MORDERACHAI VANUNU BACK IN COURT FOR VIOLATING RELEASE TERMS
- Date: 12th April 2005
- Summary: (W3) JERUSALEM (APRIL 12, 2005) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV OF ISRAELI WHISTLEBLOWER MORDECHAI VANUNU, SURROUNDED BY SUPPORTERS, STANDING OUTSIDE ISRAELI MAGISTRATES COURT (2 SHOTS) 0.10 2. SLV OF SUPPORTERS OUTSIDE COURT 0.13 3. MCU (English) ISRAELI WHISTLEBLOWER MORDECHAI VANUNU SAYING: "I hope the Israeli government, the Israeli just
- Embargoed: 27th April 2005 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: JERUSALEM./ SHIKMA PRISON, NEAR ASHKELON, ISRAEL
- City:
- Country: Israel
- Reuters ID: LVA6MHGCXTNYBAQOSXR5OI8KPNMN
- Story Text: Vanunu back in court for violating release terms.
Jerusalem's Magistrates Court began on Tuesday
(April 12) a hearing for nuclear whistleblower Mordechai
Vanunu after he was charged for violating the terms of his
release from prison by speaking to foreign reporters.
Vanunu, who was convicted in a closed-door trial after
sharing top-secret information about the nuclear reactor in
Dimona with the London Sunday Times, appeared in
Jerusalem's Magistrate Court for a preliminary hearing on
the indictment.
Outside the courtroom, a handful of supporters gathered
to show their support.
"I'm here because I'm concerned about the nuclear arms
race in the region and I think as Israel was the first to
start it, we should be the first to stop it," one of the
supporters said.
If he is found guilty, he faces another prison term, but it is
unli
kely the court would impose such a severe
punishment.
"By bringing me to the court today, you are proving
that Israel has nuclear bombs and producing a hydrogen
bombs and neutron bombs and produces 40 kilos of plutonium
every year," Vanunu said in Hebrew to one of the Israeli
networks in the courtroom.
A former technician at Israel's top-secret Dimona
nuclear reactor, Vanunu, now 50, served an 18-year prison
term for spilling atomic secrets to a British newspaper in
1986.
He was released last April under orders not to speak
to the foreign media and to remain inside Israel.
An indictment filed in a Jerusalem court charged Vanunu
with 21 counts of violating the bans. Israel's Supreme
Court turned down his appeal against the restrictions last
July, accepting the government's argument he remained a
security risk.
"I have no more secrets. The only one with secrets
are the Israeli government," Vanunu said before entering
the courtroom.
Last November, police arrested Vanunu, a convert to
Christianity, at the Jerusalem church where he has lived
since he left jail and brought him to court on suspicion of
having spilled more state secrets to the foreign press.
He was later released to house arrest and has remained
under constant surveillance by Israeli security services.
Vanunu was abducted in Rome by agents of Israel's
Mossad intelligence service and jailed in 1986 for
discussing his work at the Dimona reactor with Britain's
Sunday Times.
His revelations to the newspaper led experts to
conclude that Israel had amassed between 100 and 200
nuclear weapons, all but blowing away the country's policy
of "strategic ambiguity" over its assumed non-conventional
arsenal.
In an interview conducted by an Israeli intermediary
and broadcast by the BBC in June, Vanunu said he exposed
Dimona because he wanted to save Israel from a "new
holocaust". But he also questioned the Jewish state's right
to exist.
Vanunu has said he plans to leave Israel permanently
once the travel ban is lifted.
ends
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