Vanunu will not be silenced

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday February 27, 2004 11:29 by kokomero

Israel's longest serving political prisoner

will fight on in the US after 18 years of solitary confinement in Israel following his kidnapping by Israeli agents

Vanunu intends to defy Israeli government plans to restrict his freedom after he is released from 18 years' solitary confinement on 21 April.

In a defiant statement, issued through his brother Meir, he boasted that he had won. "In the end the locks will be open," he said. "They didn't break me or drive me mad after all those years of isolation." He wants to move to the United States.

Ariel Sharon decided on Tuesday that Mr Vanunu should "be subjected to appropriate supervisory measures in order to prevent him from perpetrating additional security offences". Among the measures being considered are a ban on leaving the country, monitoring his phone calls and supervising whom he meets and what they talk about.

"They say I have additional secrets," Mr Vanunu said, "but that is a lie, an excuse, a cover-up. All that was known to me has been published. Anything I can say will be a repetition."

Their attempts to silence Vanunu come against the background of admissions that any knowledge he has is long out of date, and are rather aimed at stifling any organised campaign by Vanunu and his supporters who would like to see a dismantling of Israels estimated 400 nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.