Whistleblower: I feared brainwashing

[JoFerret]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=514973

Whistle-blower: 'I feared brain-washing... They were out to destroy my personality'
As newly released technician speaks out, Sharon comes close to admitting his country has nuclear weapons
By Donald Mcintyre in Jerusalem
25 April 2004


Nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu was convinced during his long years of imprisonment that his jailers were out to brainwash him.

In an extended interview in The Sunday Times, which ran his story in 1986, the man who revealed Israel's weapons programme at the Dimona nuclear plant said: "They were trying to destroy my personality. They monitored all my moves and I suspected they were tampering with my meals. I felt I had to resist accepting any changes or they would succeed in breaking me."

He said that what helped him survive his imprisonment ­ including 11 years in solitary confinement ­ was listening to opera tapes and CDs sent by well-wishers, Wagner being a particular favourite.

His remarks came as Mr Vanunu's family and supporters reported him to be in high spirits, despite their continued worries about his security from bitterly hostile elements among the Israeli public. He was brought face to face with that hostility by the taunts and shouts of "death to traitors" when he was driven from the high-security jail in Ashkelon after an otherwise tumultuous welcome from his supporters on Wednesday.

Mr Vanunu's brother Meir said that foreign governments, including Britain's, should act to ensure that Mr Vanunu was protected after the Justice Minister, Tommy Lapid, said that Israel would not be providing security for Mr Vanunu. He was also disturbed by the heavy emphasis laid by sections of the Israeli media on his brother's conversion from the Judaism of his Moroccan immigrant parents. Referring to the main headline in the mass-circulation daily Yedhiot Ahronot after his release ­ "Mordechai the Christian" ­ he said: "They are treating him as a traitor to his religion and not as a man who is also idealistically and ideologically motivated."

Although a few of the restrictions on his release have been slightly relaxed, he will not be able to make a new life in the US for at least a year. Despite his repeated denials, ministers continue to insist he has more security-sensitive details to divulge.

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