Search for N-technician fails

Press, 31 October 1986, Page 8

Search for N-technician fails

NZPA-AP Jerusalem An Anglican priest left Israel for Australia via London yesterday after trying without success to find a friend who reportedly was kidnapped by Israeli agents after disclosing details of an alleged Israeli nuclear weapons factory.

The Rev. John Mcknight said Israeli officials have refused to discuss the case with him since he arrived last week, and “none of my phone calls have been returned.”

Mr Mcknight, of Sydney, said he understood that his friend, Mordechai Vanunu, was being held in

a top-security prison west of Jerusalem and would be charged with violating security by revealing State secrets.

He said the trial might be held in secret and its results never publicised. Israeli officials have declined comment on the case.

Mr Vanunu, aged 32, a former nuclear technician, gained notoriety last month by giving “The Times” of London details of what he said was an underground nuclear weapons factory in southern Israel, including photographs taken with a camera he said he

smuggled into the plant. The newspaper checked his information with nuclear scientists, who said that the story sounded genuine and indicated that Israel was the world’s sixth-ranked nuclear power.

Israel does not acknowledge having nuclear weapons and says it will not be the first to introduce them into the Middle .East.

Foreign reports have said agents of Israel’s Mossad secret service abducted Mr Vanunu after he spoke to “The Times,” either in London or from a yacht off Britain. Mr Mcknight said he

befriended Mr Vanunu this year in Australia and converted him to Christianity in June. He last spoke to his friend by telephone on September. 30, a day before Mr Vanunu disappeared.

Mr Vanunu went into hiding, changed hotels seven times during his last three weeks in London, and said in their last conversation that he was worried about his safety, said Mr Mcknight yesterday.

Footnote: This dispatch was submitted to the Israeli military censor, who made a significant deletion.