Vanunu Given 18-Year Sentence for Revealing Israeli Nuclear Secrets

Mordechai Vanunu, the former Israeli nuclear technician who said he acted as a “spy for the common man” when he gave his country’s atomic secrets to a British newspaper, was sentenced Sunday to 18 years in prison for treason and espionage.

The sentencing climaxed a 7-month, closed-door trial that focused worldwide attention on Israel’s nuclear capability.

Vanunu, 34, who told the Sunday Times of London in 1986 that his country possessed nuclear weapons, was convicted last Thursday by a three-judge tribunal.

The charges can carry a death penalty, but the prosecution requested a life term, which Israeli law limits to 20 years. The court then reduced the term by two years, citing Vanunu’s cooperation with investigators, apparent signs of regret and the difficult conditions of his 18-month solitary confinement.

Under Israeli law, Vanunu could be released on good behavior after about 12 years. But legal analysts said his early release is unlikely given the severity of the crimes.

The judges said in a statement after the sentencing that they rejected Vanunu’s claim that he acted out of moral opposition to nuclear warfare.

Appeal Planned

Prosecutor Uzi Hasson said he was “satisfied” with the 18-year sentence, but defense lawyer Avidgor Feldman said he will appeal both the sentence and the verdict to Israel’s Supreme Court. During Sunday’s sentencing hearing, Feldman presented a petition from noted American scientists, including 18 Nobel Prize laureates, asking for leniency, according to Israel Radio.

The sentencing climaxed an affair shrouded in secrecy that began when Vanunu, a 10-year employee of Israel’s top-secret Dimona nuclear facility, gave photographs and details of the plant’s operation to the Sunday Times.

Based on that information, the London paper reported in October, 1986, that Israel had stockpiled the world’s sixth-largest nuclear arsenal, behind the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China.

Israel has never confirmed or denied that it has nuclear weapons. It has said only that it will not be the first country to introduce such weapons into the Middle East.

Vanunu, a Jewish-born convert to Christianity, testified during his trial that he made his revelations to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear weapons, not for personal gain or out of a desire to harm his country.

In a poem quoted by his attorney on Israeli television after the verdict, Vanunu called himself a “spy for the common man.”

Vanunu had also negotiated a lucrative contract with the Sunday Times pending publication of a never-completed book and earlier had approached several news organizations offering to sell his story for large sums.

Vanunu has received almost no support from Israelis, many of whom view him as a traitor.

But his cause has been adopted by international groups including anti-nuclear activists, scientists, politicians and the Amnesty International human rights group.