MIDDLE EAST: Israel's Supreme Court yesterday upheld a series of security restrictions imposed on Mordechai Vanunu, the former nuclear technician who recently completed an 18-year-jail term for revealing his country's nuclear secrets, and the state prosecution is now considering bringing new charges against him.
Mr Vanunu was released from jail in April, but barred from leaving the country, approaching air and sea ports, speaking to foreign journalists, meeting foreign nationals and moving house.
The Supreme Court rejected his appeal against these restrictions yesterday, accepting the state prosecution argument that he still possessed sensitive information and was willing to expose it.
Having insisted that he had no more classified information to reveal, a bitter Mr Vanunu protested the ruling at an impromptu press conference outside the courthouse, calling its endorsement of restrictions on his freedom of speech and movement "the true face of Israeli justice and Israeli democracy". Even that press conference was an apparent breach of the restrictions, and officials in the state prosecutor's office said they were already investigating him for previous breaches with a view to pressing new charges.
In an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat Arabic newspaper this week, Mr Vanunu warned of a second Chernobyl, asserting that millions in the region might be killed if an earthquake caused radioactive leakage at the reactor in the southern town of Dimona where he used to work. He also urged Jordan to test residents in border areas nearest to Dimona for possible contamination. In the same interview, he castigated Dr Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for failing to insist on visiting the Dimona reactor when in Israel earlier this month.