Vanunu exposes Israel's nuclear weapons

Mordechai Vanunu worked from 1976 to 1985 as a technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona, in southern Israel. Before leaving, he secretly took about 60 photographs inside the plant, including its underground plutonium separation facility. In 1986 he traveled to Australia and then London, and on October 5 The Sunday Times published his account. Experts it consulted concluded that Israel had produced enough plutonium for perhaps 100 to 200 nuclear weapons, far more than outside estimates, and might be working on more advanced designs.¹²⁴

Days before publication, a Mossad agent posing as an American tourist named Cindy persuaded Vanunu to fly with her to Rome, where he was drugged and secretly shipped to Israel. He was convicted of treason and espionage in a closed trial in 1988 and served 18 years, more than eleven of them in solitary confinement. Since his release in 2004 he has lived under restrictions on travel and on speaking to foreigners. Israel still neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons, a policy known as nuclear ambiguity.¹²³