Mordechai Vanunu (Hebrew: ×ר××× ××× ×× ×â) is an Israeli former nuclear technical assistant who revealed details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by an American woman named Cheryl Bentov and kidnapped by Israeli intelligence operatives. He was transported to Israel and ultimately convicted of treason and espionage.
Vanunu was born in Marrakech, Morocco, on 14 October 1954 to a Jewish family; his father was a rabbi. In 1963, at the age of nine, he emigrated under the Law of Return with his parents and the first 4 of his 11 brothers and sisters to Israel. He studied in an ultra orthodox elementary school, and attended, but did not finish, a Bnei Akiva yeshiva high school.
Vanunu completed his three years of military service as a sapper in the IDF Combat Engineering Corps, with the rank of First Sergeant. After completing his service, Vanunu began working as a technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center. Concurrently, he became a part-time geography and philosophy student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
At that time he became critical of many policies of the Israeli government, forming a group called “Campus” with four other Jewish students and five Arab students. Vanunu was also affiliated with a group called “Movement for the Advancement of Peace.” In early 1980s Vanunu converted to Christianity from Judaism. Vanunu graduated from Ben-Gurion University in 1985 with a BA in Philosophy and Geography.
Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been briefly arrested several times for violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He says he has been persecuted by the authorities in Israel because of his conversion to Christianity, saying “I want to tell those who say I am a traitor, I suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian.”
In 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to six months in prison for violating terms of his parole. The sentence was considered unusual even by the prosecution who expected a suspended sentence. In response, Amnesty International issued a press release on 2 July 2007, stating that “The organisation considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release.” Vanunu has been characterized by some as a whistleblower and by others as a traitor. Daniel Ellsberg has referred to him as “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era”.
On 28 December 2009, Mr. Vanunu was once again arrested “by Jerusalem Police in a hotel in the capital following an alleged meeting with a Norwegian national. He remained in jail on Tuesday, though was set to be transferred to house arrest…”