Nuclear whistleblower defiant as he leaves Israeli prison

ISRAEL: The man who exposed to world scrutiny Israel's controversial secret nuclear weapons programme put on a spirited display…

ISRAEL: The man who exposed to world scrutiny Israel's controversial secret nuclear weapons programme put on a spirited display of defiance yesterday upon his release from prison after serving 18 years for treason and espionage.

Mr Mordechai Vanunu (50) smiled broadly and made victory signs in the air as he stepped into the April sunshine, voicing no regrets for having blown the whistle on the Jewish state's atomic capabilities.

The former nuclear technician, whose revelations about the top-secret Dimona reactor in the Negev desert led to his incarceration, was hailed as a hero by his assembled supporters while furious counter-demonstrators heckled him with death threats and denounced him as a traitor.

Strolling up to the television cameras in the courtyard of Shikma prison in the coastal town of Ashkelon, Mr Vanunu answered his critics in faltering and heavily accented English.

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"To all those who are calling me traitor, I am saying I am proud of what I did," he said, with his younger brother Meir at his side.

He complained of "cruel and barbaric treatment" by Israel's security establishment and refused to answer questions in Hebrew in protest over the raft of constraints imposed on him under emergency law dating back to the foundation of Israel in 1948, including a one-year ban on travel abroad and restrictions on contacts with foreigners.

Mr Vanunu said he wanted eventually to move to the US, where his adoptive parents live, marry and teach history. He also repeated his anti-nuclear message: "Israel doesn't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East is free from nuclear arms. My message today to all the world is open the Dimona reactor for inspections."

The Jewish state has never acknowledged its nuclear capability, and it was Mr Vanunu's revelations in The Sunday Times of London in 1986 which led analysts to conclude that it had amassed one of the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear warheads. Israel insists Mr Vanunu is still a threat to state security and plans to keep a close watch on him, but Mr Vanunu dismissed this yesterday saying he had no more secrets to reveal.

His supporters have voiced strong concerns for his safety in a country where he is widely reviled and was denounced yesterday by the Minister for Justice as a "born traitor". While Mr Vanunu's movements will be closely monitored by Israel's secret services, he has not been offered any state protection.

As his car pulled out of the blue prison gates yesterday, Mr Vanunu pressed his palm to the window, a gesture which echoed his desperate action in 1986 when he let the world know that he had been abducted by Israel by scrawling a message on his hand and holding it up for photographers to capture.

A noisy crowd of several hundred supporters and counter-demonstrators vied with each other to be seen and heard by Mr Vanunu as he left the compound. His supporters from Israel and other countries, including Ireland, clutched fresh flowers and placards, some chanting in Hebrew "human rights yes, atomic weapons no," and "we don't want a Holocaust, dismantle Dimona".

Supporters included the British actress Susannah York and the Irish Nobel Peace laureate, Mairead Corrigan Maguire.

The anti-Vanunu crowd booed and held aloft rose stems sprayed black, shouting "traitor" and "death to Vanunu". Mr Hertl Haliwa, an elderly man from Mr Vanunu's home town of Beersheva, said he was a distant relative. "He's family, but I want to slash his throat and drink his blood," he said. "He is a fascist. Nuclear weapons are our insurance against the Arabs. If we didn't have them they would throw us into the sea."

After Mr Vanunu had gone, the right-wing demonstrators opposed to his release turned on his supporters, barracking and threatening them. Scuffles broke out after police tried to restrain them. After his release Mr Vanunu, a Moroccan-born Christian convert, went to St George's Anglican Church near Jerusalem's Old City "to give thanks to my friends and to my God".