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<font size=3><br>
</font><font face="Copperplate Gothic Bold" size=5><b>Vanunu: What I did
was not espionage or treason <br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#0000FF"><b><i><u>"The
decision-makers in Israel don't learn and don't forget"<br>
</u></i></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4> <br>
By <b><i><u>Yossi Melman</u></i></b>, Haaretz Correspondent <br>
19/04/2004 <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#0000FF"><b><i><u>"There
is no need for a Jewish state," he says, adding that a Palestinian
state should be established instead where the Jews can also
live."</u></i></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#0000FF"><b><i><u>"Despite
everything that was published, nothing has changed. No one came to Israel
and made demands [of it]."... </u></b> <b><u>"just as they
destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, <br>
I want the Israeli nuclear reactor destroyed." <br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000">Nuclear
whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who is due to be released from an Israeli
jail on Wednesday after 18 years, says that he does not believe that what
he did constitutes treason or espionage. <br><br>
</u></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>"I claim
that I wanted to tell the world about what was happening," he is
heard saying in a recording of a meeting at his cell in Ashkelon's Shikma
Prison last month with a senior defense establishment official and a Shin
Bet representative. <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000"><b><u>When
asked if it constituted treason, he replied "I will tell you in my
own words: this is not treason, it is informing the world, unlike
Israel's policies."<br><br>
</u></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>Vanunu said
Israel should not have trusted him with sensitive information and that
the "bigshot psychologists" from the Shin Bet and the Mossad
spy security services should have spotted him as a potential security
risk.</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000"><b><u>
"You gave information to the wrong man," he is quoted as
saying. <br><br>
Vanunu goes on to slam the state. "There is no need for a Jewish
state," he says, adding that a Palestinian state should be
established instead where the Jews can also
live.</u></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>
<br><br>
He is also heard complaining that no actions were taken against Israel
following the details he revealed on its nuclear program.
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000"><b><u>"Despite
everything that was published, nothing has changed. No one came to Israel
and made demands [of it]."
</u></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>When asked if
that is what he wanted will happen, he responds,
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000"><b><u>"just
as they destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, I want the Israeli nuclear
reactor destroyed." Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor in
1981.<br><br>
</u></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>The former
nuclear technician also denies that he is writing a book. "I write
letters, I write my political opinions. Is that wrong?" He claims
that the information he has on the nuclear reactor in the southern
Israeli town of Dimona is not longer relevant. "I've been inside for
20 years, everything has changed ... science and technology have
progressed in huge leaps, so what I saw seems to me to be very old. I
don't think that the Americans or Europeans need this information. They
do not need Vanunu to tell them. If they want information, they will get
it ... As for myself, I just want to repeat the things I already said and
that were published."<br><br>
Vanunu was snatched from Rome by the Mossad in 1986 after being lured
into a rendezvous by a female agent, smuggled to Israel by yacht, tried
behind closed doors and sentenced to 18 years for treason.<br><br>
The recording of the interview has been passed on to a special public
relations committee set up recently by government ministries to
coordinate Vanunu's release. Someone passed the tape onto Israeli
television stations Channel 1 and 10, and will be broadcast Monday
evening. Channel 10 also passed the tape onto the Israeli daily
newspapers Yedioth Aharonoth and Maariv.<br><br>
Head of the public relations committee, Rachel Naidik-Ashkenazi told
Haaretz on Monday that she had not passed the tape onto the media, and
refused to say who had.<br><br>
She said that officials decided to release the tape "so that the
Israeli public can get to know Vanunu."<br><br>
The Prisons Service decided to vide tape Vanunu, a short time after the
audio tape was made, but without the defense officials' knowledge. A
complaint was then filed with Attorney General Menachem Mazuz who is
currently looking into the matter. Mazuz did however permit the public
relations committee to publish the tapes in the media. <br><br>
Vanunu has filed a complaint with defense officials against releasing the
video tape, saying that he was told that his privacy would not be
infringed.<br><br>
Vanunu to be greeted by foreign and local supporters, media fanfare
<br><br>
Both the defense establishment and supporters of Vanunu have begun the
countdown to Wednesday, when the nuclear whistle-blower and former
employee at Dimona's top-secret atomic facility is scheduled to walk out
of the Shikma prison after serving 18 years in jail for his conviction on
treason and espionage charges.<br><br>
A veritable "Vanunu festival" is planned to mark the prisoner's
long-awaited
release.</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000"><b><u>
Peace activists and anti-nuclear campaigners from the United States,
Britain, Japan, Ireland, Poland, Hungary and other countries have been
arriving in Israel since last week. They will number some 90
individuals,</u></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>
says Rina Moss of the Israeli Committee to Free Mordechai Vanunu, which
is coordinating the planned events. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead
Maguire of Northern Ireland, actress Susannah York, British
parliamentarians Jeremy Corbyn and Colin Breed, and Reverend Bruce Kent,
the president of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, are among
those expected to attend. Playwright Harold Pinter, actress Emma Thompson
and London Mayor Ken Livingstone have sent letters of support that will
be read during the ceremonies outside the prison.<br><br>
The 90 foreigners will be joined by a few hundred Israelis, who will hold
a solidarity watch outside the prison gates tomorrow, and welcome Vanunu
on his release the following day. Local and international television
crews will also be present to broadcast live from the scene.<br><br>
The authorities are also preparing for the release. Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's media adviser, Assi Shariv, met Sunday with the spokesmen of
several government ministries to coordinate positions and formulate a
uniform public line, including a response in the event that Vanunu
violates the restrictions imposed on him after his release.<br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000"><b><u>"The
decision-makers in Israel don't learn and don't forget a
thing,"</u></b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>
said a senior government official. "If they were to allow Vanunu to
do as he has requested and leave Israel, within a few days, the interest
in him would die down and not reach the heights we are expecting to
see."<br><br>
Speaking to Haaretz, Mordechai's brother, Meir Vanunu, said: "I am
both surprised and not surprised by the Israeli media. All these years,
particularly when he was in solitary confinement in his cell, the Israeli
media, and the electronic media in particular, showed no interest in him.
This is why I have refused until now to be interviewed on television.
Now, they are suddenly jumping on the bandwagon."<br><br>
While Vanunu's supporters are still worried about the possibility of a
last-minute trick on the part of the authorities, a security source said
that Vanunu would be released on time, in the morning, just like any
other prisoner.<br><br>
On Saturday, Shin Bet security service officials at Ben-Gurion
International Airport detained and questioned Sharon Wallace in the
presence of her three children, aged 10, 15 and 17, for some three hours.
Luca, the youngest of the three children, is the son of Meir Vanunu and
the nephew of Mordechai Vanunu.<br><br>
"They made us undergo a pretty humiliating physical
examination," Sharon Wallace, who holds a U.S. passport, told
Haaretz Saturday night. "And they accused me of planning to use my
children to pass on classified information from Mordechai following his
release from prison. I told them that it was insulting to hear empty
claims such as these."<br><br>
A day earlier, Ernest Rodker, coordinator of the British wing of the
Campaign to Free Vanunu and for a Nuclear Free Middle East, was detained
at the airport for a similar length of time. During his interrogation,
the Shin Bet officials asked him if he was carrying anything in his
belongings that could be detrimental to Israel.
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#800000"><b><u>"They
held me for hours without explaining to me why," Rodker told
Haaretz. "I find it hard to understand this paranoid behavior; it
reeks of a police state." <br><br>
</u></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><i>Mordechai Vanunu
is set to be released on Wednesday, after 18 years in jail. (Archives)
<br><br>
</i></b>Related Links<br>
* Vanunu appeals limitations to be imposed after release <br>
* Vanunu to face numerous restrictions after prison release <br>
* Vanunu tells brothers: I have no more nuclear secrets <br><br>
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