In 1985, nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu secretly photographed 57 areas of Israel’s Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona before leaving his job on 27 October. He provided the photographs and technical information to the British Sunday Times in September 1986. Nuclear experts Theodore Taylor and Frank Barnaby reviewed the material and judged his account factual. Vanunu described plutonium processing and lithium-6 separation, allowing estimates that Israel produced roughly 30 kilograms of plutonium annually and used about 4 kilograms per weapon—potentially enough material for approximately 150 weapons. Israel maintained a policy of nuclear ambiguity and denied his allegations, portraying him as a minor technician.
After the disclosure became known, Israeli intelligence tracked Vanunu and, according to the account, lured him from London to Italy, where Mossad agents drugged and abducted him. He was secretly taken to Israel, tried behind closed doors, and convicted. Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement, despite solitary confinement not being specified in Israel’s penal code or his verdict. After his release in 2004, authorities restricted his speech, foreign contacts, and movement; he received a six-month sentence in 2007 and three months in 2010 for violating parole conditions. The National Security Archive published documents in 2015 corroborating aspects of his claims about official secrecy surrounding Dimona.
