Gov’t Indicts Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu

Israel has indicted Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu for meeting with American citizens in Yerushalayim and violating other court-ordered restrictions.

Vanunu is a former employee at Israel’s nuclear reactor who served many years in Israeli prisons for leaking details and pictures of Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper in 1986. Israel neither confirms nor denies its nuclear capability.

When he was released from prison in 2004, Israel banned him from speaking with foreigners and leaving Israel, among other restrictions.

According to Sunday’s indictment, Vanunu met two Americans at a hotel in eastern Yerushalayim in 2013, changed apartments without notifying Israeli authorities in 2014, and in 2015 gave a Channel Two media anchor information related to his work at the nuclear reactor that he is forbidden from speaking about.

Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement. He was released from prison in 2004, since which time he has been arrested on several occasions for giving interviews to the foreign media. In 2007, for example, Vanunu was sentenced to six months in prison for violating terms of his parole.