Subject: M-G: Vanunu news
From: papadop-AT-peak.org
Date: 13 Dec 1997 19:35:37


Remember Mordecai Vanunu was the engineer who told the London paper about
the Israeli nuclear plant - was then kidnapped to Israel to be tried and
found guilty, and is still in solitary confinement after 9-10 years.
===================================================================   December 14 1997 MIDDLE EAST
   
London Sunday Times

   Vanunu clashes with minister on solitary status
   
   by Andy Goldberg
   Tel Aviv
   
   MORDECHAI Vanunu, who was jailed for exposing Israel's secret nuclear
   weapons programme in The Sunday Times 11 years ago, clashed with the
   country's minister of public security after demanding to be
   transferred from solitary confinement to a wing for Palestinian
   prisoners last week.
   
   They met on Thursday when Avigdor Kahalani visited the top-security
   Ashkelon jail in southern Israel. Prison sources said the encounter
   turned ugly as soon as the minister entered Vanunu's cramped cell.
   
   One officer said Kahalani was angered by the large cross on the cell
   wall - testament to Vanunu's conversion to Christianity.
   
   "Why am I in solitary confinement?" demanded Vanunu, whose appeals for
   improved conditions have always been rejected. Kahalani, a former tank
   commander who halted a Syrian advance on the Golan Heights in the 1973
   Middle East war, called Vanunu "a traitor", the sources said.
   
   Kahalani attempted to justify Vanunu's isolation in a windowless cell
   by arguing he was a security threat. "You revealed state secrets and
   now you are asking me to be transferred to a cell with Palestinian
   prisoners," he said.
   
   "I did not act against the state," prison sources quoted Vanunu as
   replying. "I saved the state because it will no longer use nuclear
   weapons."
   
   "No," replied Kahalani, "You still pose a danger to the state and
   that's why you will stay right here."
   
   Independent analysts dispute the claim that Vanunu poses a danger.
   They say the former nuclear technician divulged all his knowledge in
   1986, when, on the basis of his information, experts estimated that
   Israel had the world's sixth largest stockpile of nuclear arms, with
   100-200 weapons. Vanunu left the top-secret Dimona nuclear plant after
   taking photographs and drawing its interior, and went to Australia,
   where he made contact with Sunday Times reporters. He said he had a
   duty to warn the world about Israel's nuclear weapons.
   
   An undercover Israeli agent befriended him in London and lured him
   into a trap in Rome, where he was captured, and taken by boat to
   Israel. There he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to 18 years
   in prison. Vanunu and his supporters believe he has been isolated to
   drive him insane so that when he leaves jail in 2004, he will be
   discredited.
   
   Friends and family say that the strain of so many years in prison is
   beginning to tell on Vanunu, who has become paranoid and believes he
   is close to death. Kahalani remained unconcerned as he joked with
   reporters. "Vanunu is getting five-star treatment," he laughed, "and
   looks a picture of health."


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