Israeli former
nuclear technician, who worked in
Israel at the
Dimona plant. In
1986 he
blew the whistle on
Israel's
nuclear weapons progam. (Other states were already aware of the weapons, but the
general public was not.) Shortly before the information was to be
published in
The Times of
London, Vanunu was enticed from
England to
Italy, where he was
kidnapped (not just
arrested since the
agents did not follow any of the niceties of
extradition, nor did they have any local
authority within Italy) by Israeli agents and brought back to Israel to stand trial for
treason and
espionage.
The trial was held in secret and no transcripts have ever been published to date. The court sentenced Vanunu to eighteen years in prison. He served more than ten years in solitary confinement and is now held with some visitation allowed in Ashkelon prison. Many peace, environment and free speech activists campaign for his release.
An interesting wrinkle of the whole issue is that the United States is bound by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as the Foreign Assistance Act (as amended) which clearly prohibit the United States from giving military or economic aid to Israel "if" it is building or deploying nuclear weapons...yet aid continues 14 years after Vanunu's revelations, neatly revealing that when push comes to shove, realpolitik and our "secret government" can overcome the government of laws quickly and easily.