MIDDLE EAST: Israeli police have arrested nuclear whistleblower Mr Mordechai Vanunu on suspicion of revealing more state secrets seven months after he completed an 18-year prison term for treason.
Mr Vanunu was bundled yesterday into an unmarked car at the Jerusalem church where he has lived since he left jail in April. Barred from going abroad or meeting foreign media for a probationary period, he had been under constant surveillance.
"He is suspected of passing classified information to unauthorised parties," a police spokesman said. "He is also suspected of violating the terms of his release."
Mr Vanunu (50) is reviled in Israel but admired by anti-nuclear activists worldwide and repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A convert to Christianity, he was abducted in Rome by Mossad agents and jailed in 1986 for discussing his work at Israel's main atomic reactor in Dimona with a British newspaper.
His revelations to the Sunday Times led experts to conclude that Israel had amassed up to 200 nuclear weapons, all but blowing away its policy of "strategic ambiguity" over its assumed non-conventional arsenal.
Although he vowed to continue campaigning for nuclear disarmament, Mr Vanunu denies having new information on Dimona. He failed to win political asylum in Sweden last month, saying he felt his life was threatened.