*Ø* Blogmanac | Vanunu released to life of 'internal exile'

Independent.co.uk:

"Mordechai Vanunu, the man who first revealed that Israel had nuclear weapons, is 'demoralised, worried and angry,' as he finally prepares for the end of his 18-year prison sentence this week.

"In one of the more grudging and unusual prison releases of recent times, Mr Vanunu, 49, is due to walk out of jail on Wednesday at the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon and into a series of heavily confining restrictions, amounting to a form of internal exile.

"Mr Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona nuclear plant, spent almost 12 years of his sentence in solitary confinement after he was lured to Rome in 1986 and then drugged and kidnapped by Mossad agents after talking to The Sunday Times in London about Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons programme ...

"Adopting a doctrine of 'nuclear ambiguity' -- which campaigners say was fatally undermined by Mr Vanunu's revelations -- Israel has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons. But the CIA has estimated that it has between 200 and 400 of them."

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