N-technician’s kidnap claim probed

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 6

N-technician’s kidnap claim probed

NZPA-Reuter Tel Aviv A message sneaked to reporters by the accused Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, saying he was kidnapped in Rome and spirited to Jerusalem seem likely to cause tension in Israel’s relations with Italy. Vanunu, aged 31, who disappeared from London after leaking alleged atomic secrets to a British newspaper, managed to show reporters on Sunday a four-line message written on the palm of his hand which read: “Hijacked in Rome ITL 30.9.86 2100, came to Rome B.A. Flight 504.” Italy asked Israel’s ambassador in Rome yesterday for clarification on Vanunu’s disclosure, State radio reported. It said the request was passed to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. The radio also quoted Italian officials as saying the Government would not react to the reports until it had compiled all the necessary information on the affair. The newspaper, “Haaretz,” yesterday quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying Vanunu was not abducted in Rome. Military censors yesterday lifted a ban on reporting the message, revealed when Vanunu pressed the palm of his hand against the window of a police

van taking him to a closed court hearing in Jerusalem.

Vanunu, who faces espionage and treason charges for telling the “Sunday Times” that Israel produced nuclear warheads for two decades, had been missing from London since the end of September. The message on his hand indicated that he took a British Airways flight to Rome airport, where he was abducted and brought back to Israel.

Photographs of Vanunu’s palm showed that he specified September 29 as his arrival date in Rome. He had been reported missing from London since September 30.

The “London Evening Standard” said he was enticed aboard the flight to Rome by an attractive woman called Cindy who was working for Israel’s Mossad Secret Service.

The British Foreign Office declined comment on the report, but earlier accounts that Vanunu was abducted from British soil caused tension between Britain and Israel. Vanunu’s message would help explain why Israel could insist that no British laws were broken from the time he was reported missing in London until it announced on November 9 that he was

in detention. Britain’s ambassador to Israel has demanded further explanations in spite of Israeli assurances Vanunu was not illegally abducted from British soil. In Rome, Italian security service officials said they knew nothing of any kidnapping by Israeli agents and expressed amazement and disbelief over the reports. Security service sources said such an operation would be possible without Italian knowledge. They said that if Vanunu had arrived on the afternoon British Airways flight, he may have been held overnight by Mossad, because the next El Al flight to Tel Aviv was at midday the next day.

In Jerusalem on Sunday, the District Court ordered Vanunu imprisoned until the end of his trial. He stands accused of passing secrets to the “Sunday Times” in his descriptions and photographs of the topsecret Dimona reactor where he worked for 10 years. The “Sunday Times” said Vanunu’s disclosures showed that Israel was the world’s sixth largest nuclear power. Israel has refused comment on Vanunu’s allegations, saying only that it will not be the first country to introduce atomic weapons into the Middle East.