Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu (Hebrew: מרדכי ואנונו‎; Hebrew pronunciation: [moʁdeˈχaj vaˈnunu]; pronunciation; Arabic: مردخاي فعنونو; Arabic pronunciation: [murdaxaj faʕnuːnu]; born 14 October 1952), also known as John Crossman, is an Israeli former nuclear technician and peace activist who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured from Britain to Italy by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, where he was drugged and abducted. He was secretly transported to Israel and ultimately convicted in a trial that was held behind closed doors.

Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement, though this type of punishment is not prescribed anywhere in Israel's penal code, nor imposed by his verdict. Released from prison in 2004, he was further subjected to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and his movement and arrested several times for violations of his parole terms, giving interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He claims to have suffered from "cruel and barbaric treatment" at the hands of prison authorities, and suggests that things would have been different if he had not converted to Christianity.