Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu (מרדכי ואנונו; born 14 October 1954), also known as John Crossman, is an Israeli former nuclear technician and peace activist who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986.

He was subsequently lured to Italy by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, where he was drugged and abducted.

He was secretly transported to Israel and ultimately convicted in a trial that was held behind closed doors.

Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement, though no such restriction is mentioned in Israel's penal code, nor imposed by his verdict.

In 1963, Vanunu's father sold his business, and the family emigrated to Israel.

Vanunu was ten years old at the time.

The family transited through France, spending a month in a camp in Marseille before being taken to Israel by sea.

Upon arrival in Israel, the family was sent by the Jewish Agency to settle at Beersheba, which at that time was an impoverished desert city.

During their first year in Israel, the family lived in a small wooden hut without electricity.

Vanunu's father purchased a small grocery store in the town's market area, and the family moved into an apartment.

Vanunu's father devoted his spare time to religious studies.

He came to be regarded as a rabbi, earning respect in the market.

Vanunu was sent to a Yeshiva Tichonit, a religious elementary school on the outskirts of town, which mixed religious and conventional studies.

After completing the 8th grade, his parents enrolled him in a yeshiva, but after three months, he was withdrawn.

For high school, Vanunu attended Yeshivat Ohel Shlomo high school, a Bnei Akiva-run school, where he was an excellent student, earning honors.

According to Vanunu, whilst in secondary school, he had a personal crisis which led to him deciding not to observe religious Judaism.

In an interview, he said that "already at this stage, I decided to cut myself off from the Jewish religion, but I didn't want to have a confrontation with my parents because I wanted to complete my studies".

He finished high school with a partial matriculation.

Vanunu's parents wanted him to attend a higher yeshiva; he agreed but left after a week.

He then found a temporary job in the court archives.

In October 1971, he was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces.

He tried to join the Israeli Air Force as a pilot, but after having been rejected by examiners, they sent him to the Combat Engineering Corps, where he became a sapper.

After basic training, he completed a junior commanders' course, then a non-commissioned officers course, and was given the rank of Sergeant-Major.

He was stationed in a highlands area and saw action during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

In 1974, he participated in the demolition of army installations in areas of the Golan that were to be returned to Syrian control.

Vanunu was offered a permanent job with the army as a career soldier, but declined the offer, and was honorably discharged in 1974.

He then enrolled at Tel Aviv University and entered a pre-academic course, completing his matriculation, then began studying physics.

During this period, he worked in a variety of places, including in a bakery and retirement home.

In 1987, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "his courage and self-sacrifice in revealing the extent of Israel's nuclear weapons program".

Vanunu was born in Marrakesh, Morocco, the second of 11 children born to an Orthodox Jewish family that lived in the city's mellah, or Jewish quarter.

His father, Shlomo, ran a grocery store, and his mother, Mazal, was a housewife.

Vanunu studied in an Alliance française school, and a Jewish religious elementary school, or cheder.

Released from prison in 2004, he was further subjected to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and his movement, and arrested several times for violations of his parole terms, giving interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel.

He claims to have suffered from "cruel and barbaric treatment" at the hands of prison authorities, and suggests that these would have been different if he had not converted to Christianity.

In 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to six months in prison for violating terms of his parole.

The sentence was considered unusually severe even by the prosecution, who expected a suspended sentence.

In response, Amnesty International issued a press release in July 2007, stating that "The organization considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release."

Vanunu has been characterized internationally as a whistleblower and by Israel as a traitor.

Daniel Ellsberg has referred to him as "the preeminent hero of the nuclear era".

In May 2010, Vanunu was arrested again and sentenced to three months in jail on a charge that he had met foreigners, in violation of conditions of his 2004 release from jail.