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Israel: Vanunu Appears in Court, Asks for Access to Trial Documents An Israeli who exposed information about Israel’s nuclear program appeared in court today requesting that secret documents from his trial be made public and asking for permission to meet with his British attorneys. Mordechai Vanunu, serving an 18-year prison sentence for treason in Israel, has spent several years in solitary confinement. Israeli authorities recently allowed him to spend outdoor recesses with other prisoners. No decision was made today in the Supreme Court hearing, which mostly involved a ruling that Vanunu cannot access the protocols of his trial, said Avigdor Feldman, Vanunu’s Israeli attorney. “The decision is absurd. The trial is about him. He was the defendant in the trial. Just as he was present at the trial, he should be allowed to read the protocols,” Feldman told Israel Army Radio. Israel sentenced Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, in 1988 for giving pictures of Israel’s nuclear reactor near Dimona to the London Sunday Times. Israel has never confirmed it has nuclear weapons, but experts said Vanunu’s pictures provided evidence that the country had the world’s sixth-largest nuclear weapons stockpile (see GSN, Dec. 14, 2001). The CIA more recently estimated that Israel has between 200 and 400 nuclear weapons. Public debate (see GSN, Jan. 16) in Israel over the policy of nuclear ambiguity has increased in recent years (Associated Press/Jerusalem Post, May 13).
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