Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician who revealed Israel’s nuclear secrets, says Israel was unnecessarily hounding him 12 years after he was freed from prison, as he appeared in court over breaches of his release terms.
The 62-year-old was jailed in 1986 for disclosing the inner workings of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant to Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. He spent more than 10 years of his sentence in solitary confinement.
Upon his release in 2004, Vanunu was slapped with a series of restraining orders, forbidding him from travel, contact with foreigners or speaking to media.
He has twice been jailed for breaking those orders.
Israel nuclear program secrets leaker Mordechai Vanunu at a hearing in the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on October 26, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
In January, Vanunu was convicted of meeting with two US nationals in Jerusalem in 2013 without having permission to do so.
Today’s court appearance was a sentencing hearing over that conviction.
“I left prison and they put me in another prison,” he told Jerusalem magistrates court. “I performed my punishment and they keep on punishing me.”
— AFP
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