Israeli Courtroom Closed as Vanunu Spy Trial Opens

Israeli authorities boarded up courtroom windows and imposed other extraordinary security precautions here Sunday as they opened their case against former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, accused of betraying the country’s atomic weapons secrets.

Vanunu pleaded innocent to the charges during a 90-minute proceeding last December.

Neither journalists nor members of the defendant’s family were permitted into the closed courtroom when the trial resumed with a five-hour session Sunday.

Defense attorney Avigdor Feldman said that the prosecution put its first four witnesses on the stand but that he was prohibited by court order from disclosing the nature of their testimony. He did say that it dealt with the way Vanunu, 33, was returned to Israel as well as the confession he signed after interrogation by Shin Bet security agents.

Born in Morocco

The Moroccan-born defendant is charged with aggravated espionage and revealing state secrets in connection with a Sunday Times of London article last Oct. 5 reporting that Israel had been building atomic weapons for 20 years and that, with a current stockpile of up to 200 warheads, it has become the sixth largest nuclear power in the world. Vanunu was reputedly the source for information and photographs on which the newspaper based its story.

Vanunu, who had left Israel in January, 1986, disappeared from London a few days before the Sunday Times article appeared, and on Oct. 9 last year, the Israeli government announced that he was back in this country. Officials here have refused ever since to say how he got here, although members of Vanunu’s family say that he was lured from London to Rome by an agent named “Cindy” of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, then drugged and abducted to Israel.

One of two defense motions submitted by Feldman on Sunday asked the court to release Vanunu on grounds that his capture was against international law. “We are arguing that Vanunu must be released if the court finds he was brought here illegally,” the attorney said.

Confession Retracted

He has also moved that Vanunu’s confession be quashed on grounds that it was made under circumstances violating his client’s civil rights. He refused to elaborate. Vanunu later retracted his confession.

Israel radio reported that the prosecution was expected to complete its case in about a week and that the three-judge panel hearing it would rule on the confession at that time.

Feldman told reporters he hopes the court will soon open at least part of the proceedings to the press and the public. “We hope to end the mystification of the trial, that Vanunu will be treated like any ordinary prisoner,” he said. “All these arrangements have the character of putting a stigma on Vanunu as a dangerous man. . . . This is not in his interest.”

The accused was brought to the courtroom Sunday in a closed van and whisked through a special tunnel from the driveway to the building to keep him hidden from scores of waiting reporters. The windows of his courtroom have been boarded up, and, according to Israel radio, some court employees have been replaced for security reasons.

Vague on Nuclear Issue

Government policy is to be ambiguous on the question of whether Israel possesses nuclear weapons, saying only that it will not be the first to introduce them into the region. And security surrounding the case has been extraordinary since it first became public last fall.

Precautions were increased after Vanunu managed to pass a message to reporters outside the courthouse last December by writing on his hand and flattening his palm against the window of his police van. The message indicated that he was kidnaped in Rome after flying there from London on Sept. 30, 1986.

“The state has a history of paranoia on the (nuclear) issue,” Feldman declared to reporters, after describing how his client was forced to wear a motorcycle-type helmet with a face mask during the trip from his cell to the courtroom.

‘Reacted Harshly’

Feldman said Vanunu “reacted harshly to the helmet. He pulled it off. He threw it. He shouted.”

The attorney described Vanunu as “tense” during Sunday’s court appearance, adding that his client had not addressed the court. Vanunu will testify later in his own defense, Feldman said.

The prosecution witnesses Sunday were Shimon Savir, head of the national police major crimes unit, and three Shin Bet security police agents whose names were not made public.

Vanunu, who worked for nine years at Israel’s top-secret Dimona nuclear facility before being fired in December, 1985, apparently because of pro-Palestinian sympathies, faces a possible life sentence if convicted.