Response to Israel Minister of Justice vis a' vis Human Rights of Mordechai Vanunu

Israel claims Vanunu received a fair trial...

The original Times article from 1986; it took Americans more than twenty years to ever get wind of this through traditional sources. President Carter made it reality in May 2008.

(CLERMONT, Fla.) - After 5 years of petitioning the Israeli Government to FREE VANUNU, I received a three page, 13 point letter from the State of Israel Ministry of Justice The Human Rights and Foreign Relations Department on July 29, 2010.

For those who don't know, Mordechai Vanunu is the former Israeli nuclear technician who blew the whistle over Israel U.S. funded illegal nuclear weapons program. Hundreds of Israel nuclear weapons have been aimed at their perceived enemies and threats for many years.

Vanunu spoke out to the British press in 1986 over his opposition to the secretly maintained weapons of mass destruction. After he spilled the beans over Israel's nuclear weapons program, Vanunu was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad spy, where he was drugged and kidnapped by Israeli intelligence operatives and tossed in prison for two decades after being convicted in an Israeli closed door trial kept from public view. Regarded as a large scale hero in the peace activist community, Vanunu has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on multiple occasions.

My Open Letter Response to State of Israel Ministry of Justice The Human Rights and Foreign Relations Department:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Ref: 952

Thank you for your letter dated July 21, 2010, that I received in my gmail on July 29. I would now like to address all "relevant authorities" and the State of Israel Ministry of Justice The Human Rights and Foreign Relations Department regarding points 1-13:

On April 30, 2007, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, convicted Vanunu on 14 [out of 21] counts of violating a court order prohibiting him from speaking to foreign journalists in 2004. Vanunu was also convicted for traveling the four miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem when he hoped to attend Christmas Eve mass at the Church of the Nativity, his first Christmas after being released from 18 years in jail [most of it in solitary] on April 21, 2004.

On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six more months in jail for speaking to foreign media in 2004.

On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu’s six-month jail sentence for speaking with foreign media in 2004, to three months, "In light of his ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy."

After appealing that sentence, the Israeli Supreme Court returned Vanunu to jail on May 23, 2010, after they refused his counter-offer to do three-months of community service in Arab east Jerusalem, the only community he has known since 21 April 2004.

View PDF of State of Israel Ministry of Justice Response

The Court insisted Vanunu must serve in west Jerusalem, which is 99% Jewish-populated, but Vanunu feared attack there by angry Israelis, most of whom consider him a traitor, and thus his three month sentence in solitary began on 23 May 2010.

The restrictions that have subjected Vanunu to 24/7 surveillance [his movements, phone calls and emails] for the last six years come from the Emergency Defense Regulations, which were implemented by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II.

Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel's Minister Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations as "unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany." Israel also kidnapped Vanunu in 1986, but Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "No one shall he subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention", including abduction of a person by agents of one state to another state.

Vanunu was charged with and convicted of treason and espionage.

Section 99 of the Israeli Penal Code, treason is defined as "an act calculated to assist (an enemy) in time of war...delivering information with the intention that it fall into the hands of the enemy."

Video Section 113 defines aggravated espionage as "deliver(ing) any secret information without being authorized to do so and with intent to impair the security of the state" and a sub-clause provides for a penalty of seven years for the unauthorized collection, preparation, recording or holding of secret information; if this is done with intent to impair the security of the state and then, the penalty is increased to 15 years.

On November 24th, 2006 Vanunu wrote:

"My lawyer succeeded to reveal a few very important facts: This General of the Army also was not allowed to see all the secrets that he is required to protect by these restrictions that they claim I know them. So, he gave orders of restrictions without knowing what he is protecting or that he is also following orders blindly, and Mossad Sheen Bet using its authority for just punishing me. He testified that it is not a crime for me to talk with foreigners in general anywhere. He testified that I can speak freely to any Israeli citizens about anything; it is not his concern what I am saying to them. These Israelis can give this information to any foreigners. It was difficult for the Judge to understand why this dichotomy exits between foreigners and Israelis. It means that it is not about secrecy but about something else."

In 2004, Yossi Melman wrote for Haaretz:

"This is the secret that hasn't yet been told in the affair: the story of the security fiasco that made it possible for Vanunu to do what he did, and the story of the subsequent attempts at cover-up, whitewashing and protection of senior figures in the defense establishment, who were bent on divesting themselves of responsibility for the failure. The 18-year prison term to which Vanunu was sentenced is almost exactly the same period as that in which Yehiel Horev has served as chief of internal security in the defense establishment [who has been] involved in the affair as deputy chief of security at the Defense Ministry, and also after Vanunu's abduction and arrest, as a member of an investigative commission.

"Shortly after taking office as chief of security at the Defense Ministry, Horev began to take punitive measures to hobble Vanunu. He is responsible for the harsh conditions in which Vanunu was held, which included years in solitary confinement, and the sharp limitations on the number of visitors he could have…[and has fought] a rearguard battle to prevent Vanunu from leaving Israel and to place him under supervision and restrictions that will be tantamount to house arrest. Horev has always been considered the strictest of all the security chiefs in Israel, especially in regard to the protection of institutions such as the Dimona facility and the Biological Institute. He is apprehensive that if Vanunu goes abroad, he will continue to be a nuisance by stimulating the public debate over Israel's nuclear policy and the nuclear weapons he says Israel possesses…all the hyperactivity being displayed by Horev and those who support his approach is intended only to divert attention from what has not yet been revealed: the security blunders and their cover-ups."

On July 29, 2010, Mordechai Vanunu’s American parents, Nick and Mary Eoloff wrote, "Please advise Mr. Radzyner that Mordechai Vanunu has never been told what 'secret information' he holds that 'constitutes a relevant threat to the security of the State of Israel' after the passage of 20 years. At court hearings those matters are dictated to the court in its chamber by the Mossad without Mordechai being present. But, of course, that is how the ‘only democracy’ in the Middle East operates…"

On February 22, 2006, in a Jerusalem court it was revealed that Israel had asked Microsoft to hand over all the details of Vanunu's Hotmail account before a court order had been obtained, while eluding that Vanunu was being investigated for espionage.

Vanunu wrote:

"Microsoft obeyed the orders and gave them all the details…three months before I was arrested and my computers were confiscated. It is strange to ask Microsoft to give this information before obtaining the court order to listen to my private conversations. It means they wanted to go through my emails in secret, or maybe, with the help of the secret services, the Shaback, Mossad.