Really the Journalists need to behave themselves. It is their fault for exposing Israel’s “peaceful” nuclear programme to the world. Look out for Israeli bulldozers in central london tomorrow demolishing “fleet street”, the centre of journalistic terrorism.
Sunday Times reporter freed in Israel](Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands.)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Sunday Times journalist says Israel held him in a “dungeon with excrement on the walls” before releasing him, a day after he was arrested over contacts with nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu.
“They accused me of spying on nuclear secrets and aggravated espionage. It is laughable,” Peter Hounam told reporters as he walked out of a Jerusalem detention centre on Thursday.
Hounam, who broke Vanunu’s account of Israeli atomic secrets in 1986 in the Sunday Times, was arrested on Wednesday in connection with an as yet unbroadcast television interview that Israel said he arranged with the former nuclear technician.
Security officials, briefing foreign reporters about an arrest some Israeli politicians described as having portrayed Israel as an opponent of a free press, said they had wanted to see if Hounan had classified material in his possession.
“In the interview, Vanunu repeats details regarding the (Dimona) nuclear research facility in obvious violation of the briefings he received prior to his release,” one official said.
Hounan, he added, handed over audio tapes of the interview, which the official said was conducted by an Israeli national in an attempt by the British journalist to bypass a state ban on contacts between Vanunu and the foreign press.
Israel also prohibited Vanunu from travelling overseas after he was released from jail in April following completion of an 18-year prison term for treason.
“The Shabak (Shin Bet security service)…have carried out a very shoddy investigation and they should be ashamed of themselves,” Hounam said about his own detention.
Asked if was treated well, the 60-year-old journalist said: “If putting you in a dungeon with excrement on the walls and giving you about two hours sleep is treating you well, I really have to question the standards in this country.”
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Hounam’s 1986 interview with Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona reactor, led independent analysts to conclude the Jewish state had stockpiled hundreds of nuclear weapons, making it one of the world’s top atomic powers.
Outside the Jerusalem jail, Hounam challenged Israeli statements that Vanunu could have more secrets to spill.
“I know it’s not true because I did the original story and I made sure when I did it that everything he knew of any value was taken down in detail at the time,” he said.
“The key fight is the fight to get Mordechai Vanunu the right to leave this country, start a new life in America, if that’s where he wants to go, and stop these ridiculous restrictions.”
Israel maintains a “strategic ambiguity” around its assumed nuclear arsenal.
Britain’s ambassador to Israel, Simon McDonald, met Justice Minister Yosef Lapid earlier in the day to press for the release for Hounam’s release.
Hounam told reporters he planned to leave Israel on Friday and publish in the Sunday Times details of the investigation against him. The security official said the journalist was forbidden to return to Israel.
“I just want to show you a souvenir,” Hounam said, brandishing a pair of white briefs he said were given to him by his interrogators. “This is Shabak underpants. I think you can probably see they don’t fit.”