Sunday Times nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has urged Israel to let him leave the country and join his wife abroad.
Vanunu was released in 2004 after 18 years in prison after talking to The Sunday Times about Israel's secret nuclear programme.
Israeli spies abducted Vanunu from Rome in a ‘honeytrap’ operation and transported him to Israel where he was jailed as a traitor after a secret trial.
Channel 2, a Hebrew language station in Israel, broadcast an interview on 4 September with Vanunu.
In the interview Vanunu told of how he met ‘Cindy’, the Mossad agent who lured him to Rome, Haaretz reports.
He said: "It wasn't in a bar, it was in the street. I was crossing the road and this woman was crossing the road and we began to talk… I didn't fall in love with her, but I thought things could continue. Initially, I told her she was a Mossad agent, but afterwards I forgot about it."
The Jerusalem Post said that Vanunu had told Channel 2 that he photographed the facility in order to ‘’inform the citizens of the Middle East, the world, and the state of Israel".
The Times of Israel wrote that in the interview Vanunu denied being, in his words, ‘’a foreign spy’’ rather he claimed he acted ‘’because I thought it was the right of the people to know.’’
‘‘I, Mordechai Vanunu, took the responsibility to inform the citizens of the nuclear danger.’’
A Jewish convert to Christianity, Vanunu recently married a Norwegian professor and wishes to leave Israel.
As the Jerusalem Post reported, Vanunu wants his time in Israel to finish.
‘‘I have no more secrets to tell, and I want them to let me leave and go live abroad with my wife, and that's the end of the story."
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
