The Association for Civil Rights in Israel announced Wednesday it would petition the High Court of Justice in the coming days to remove the limitations the government has placed on nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who was released from prison Wednesday morning after serving 18 years.
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Vanunu, the Dimona reactor technician who exposed Israel's nuclear program, slammed the State of Israel and its law enforcement agencies immediately upon his release from jail, but said he had no intention of harming the State of Israel.
Vanunu walked out of Ashkelon's Shikma prison a free man around 11 A.M. local time as an 18-year prison term for aggravated espionage came to an end.
Speaking over the cries of reporters, supporters and opponents, Vanunu made a statement in the prison courtyard, flanked by two of his brothers, saying that he had been subjected to cruel and barbaric treatment during his incarceration.
He added that he had no further secrets to divulge, alleging that he suffered for 18 years because he was a Christian rather than a Jew.
A party celebrating Vanunu's release from detention, originally set to be held in Jaffa's Abulafia restaurant Wednesday evening, was moved to a Jerusalem church. Channel One reported that he would spend the night there. Dozens of his supporters and journalists were expected to attend.
"To all those who are calling me traitor, I am saying I am proud, I am proud and happy to do what I did," he said after walking through the prison gates. "I am now ready to start my life."
"I didn't say that there was no need for a Jewish state," he added, "I said Mordechai Vanunu doesn't need the Jewish state."
Vanunu, 49, spoke solely in the English, refusing to respond to any questions in Hebrew.
He said his primary message was a call to open the Dimona nuclear reactor complex to international inspections.
"I said, Israel don't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East is free from nuclear weapons," he said.
Vanunu said the Mossad spy agency and the Shin Bet security services tried to rob him of his sanity by keeping him in solitary confinement for nearly 12 years. "I said to the Shabak [Shin Bet], the Mossad, you didn't succeed to break me, you didn't succeed to make me crazy."
Asked if he was a hero, he said "all those who are standing behind me, supporting me ... all are heroes."
"I am a symbol of the will of freedom," he said. "You cannot break the human spirit."
Vanunu also alleged that the woman known as `Cindy` who helped ensnare him in September 1989 in Rome on the eve of the Sunday Times expose, was not a Mossad agent, but was working for FBI or CIA.
A brief drama developed about an hour before Vanunu's slated release: media reported that the release was in danger or being postponed after he refused to give the prison a permanent address for the next six months. He later informed the prison that his permanent address would be an Anglican Church in Jerusalem.
Dressed in a simple white-checked shirt, black tie and slacks and carrying a solitary bag, Vanunu flashed victory signs as he walked out of the prison to be greeted by hundreds of supporters.
Over 70 boxes of his personal effects, including letters and newspaper clippings, have already been removed from his prison cell.
After finishing his statement, he was driven away in a convoy of police cars, proponents yelling encouragement from one side of the vehicle, opponents screaming and making rude gestures on the other.
"He won't get out of here alive," opponents screamed as Vanunu's adopted parents, Minnesota couple Nick and Mary Eoloff, arrived at the prison. Vanunu said he hopes to settle in the United States and study history.
His first stop upon release was the St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem, where he was mobbed by supporters and the media. "I am going to the church to give thanks to my friends and to God," he said as he left Ashkelon.
Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, he was mobbed by reporters as the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, escorted him into the church. Other clergy members embraced Vanunu, and a tearful Peter Hounam, the journalist who wrote the 1986 article in The Sunday Times of London that led to Vanunu's imprisonment, hugged him.
Inside the church, Vanunu received communion. "He is an Anglican Christian and expressed his desire to offer thanks to God for his release from prison as his first act as a free man," El-Assal said. Fellow Christians, including clergy from England, the United States and Australia, joined the ritual, he added.
"The Eucharist was offered in Thanksgiving for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in prayers for Mordechai Vanunu, his family and friends, in the hopes that he can live a normal life from now on," El-Assal said.
Vanunu stood in front of an altar inside the church alongside a priest in black robes. Later, Meir Vanunu came out and said his brother would remain inside and would not be answering any more questions. Church officials locked the front gate and told reporters to leave.
The defense establishment has declared Vanunu to be a security risk, and officials have signed orders forbidding him to leave the country for a year and requiring him to obtain official clearance before speaking to foreign nationals or traveling far from his place of residence. Vanunu however told one of his attorneys on Wednesday that he did not recognize any of the restrictions placed upon him.
ACRI came to the decision to appeal the restriction to the High Court after the group's legal adviser met with Vanunu in Jerusalem on Wednesday afternoon.
The petition will be filed after the state prosecution gives ACRI evidentiary material used as the basis to determine the limitations placed on Vanunu. Among other things, Vanunu is not allowed to leave the country or hold a passport for one year, and he is not permitted to have contact with non-Israelis for six months.
The Defense Ministry on Tuesday issued a statement insisting that the former nuclear technician continues to pose a security threat. A spokesperson said officials found in Vanunu's cell diary entries that relate details about his former place of work, and also various sketches.
The spokesperson said: "After 18 years it turns out he has a phenomenal memory." She added the entries suggest an intention to disclose more classified information about the Dimona plant; this being the case, the security establishment has decided to impose restrictions on him, she added. The diary materials have been confiscated, and he will not be allowed to take them with him.
A survey conducted Monday by Haaretz and the Dialog company found that almost half of Israel's public believes Vanunu ought not to be released right now. Just under a quarter of the respondents said Vanunu ought not to be released at all, and another 24 percent said he should not be set free as long as he poses a security threat (as Israel's security establishment currently insists).
Warden: Official curbs unlikely to muzzle him Shikma Prison Warden Yossi Mikdash said he believes that Vanunu will skirt the official restrictions to be placed on him and find a way to speak out.
Mikdash confirmed reports that security authorities had confiscated large quantities of materials from his cell.
But he declined to comment on leaks to Israeli media that the confiscated material contained "documents which describe with astounding detail how Israel ,manufactures nuclear weapons 'down to the last bolt.'
"About a month ago, we carried out a thorough security examination of his cell," Mikdash said, adding that they found "correspondence, copies of letters he wrote, sketches that he made. All the problematic material was taken by security authorities for examination. Questions over this should be directed to them."
Mikdash said he had spoken with Vanunu early Wednesday, and that in recent days the prisoner had been tense. "Between the lines, you could understand from his words that he is very, very bitter about the period in which he has sat in jail, unjustifiably, in his view. He has spoken of the nation as undemocratic for having imprisoned him for this period."
"My assessment is that the limitations to be placed in him will not exactly be kept by him, and he will speak with people."
"That is my impression. He did not express himself [directly], but all of the questions of clarification that he posed to me, security authorities, and legal experts, were aimed at finding the loophole that would allow him to turn to people and speak to them.
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