He has set his hopes on a June 28 hearing before three Supreme Court judges who will decide whether the Israeli government was justified in imposing harsh restrictions on him after his release two months ago. He is barred from communicating with foreigners and travelling abroad.
In an open letter issued last night, Vanunu said he had been under constant surveillance since leaving jail and could never feel safe in Israel after the hostility shown towards him.
“Life is better now but of course it is not normal,” he said. “I am watched by the Shabak (Israel’s internal intelligence service) and by the police to make sure I obey these rules. In that sense, I am still not a free man. I feel a threat to my life and I fear for my life day by day.”
Vanunu was convicted of treason and espionage after disclosing information about a secret underground nuclear weapons plant in the desert near the town of Dimona.
The restrictions imposed at the end of his sentence were supposedly intended to prevent him from leaking more information about the complex, but yesterday he emphasised that this was a false premise.
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His letter declares: “My lawyers at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel will tell the High Court what I told the world when I left the prison, that I intend no harm to Israel and have no more secrets to reveal. Everything I knew was told in 1986.”
The letter continues: “My life here in Israel has been transformed since April 21, when so many supporters and the press came to see me in the flesh for the first time. To realise that I am a man of peace who acted against the danger of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
“I hope the court will now allow me to leave Israel and settle somewhere in the United States or Europe. This has been my dream for a long time, a dream of leading an ordinary life, of marrying, studying and working in some area where I can contribute to peace and nuclear disarmament.
“I therefore appeal to everyone here in Israel and around the world to support my petition, to put pressure on their governments to let me be a free man at last.”
Vanunu’s lawyers have filed a 70-page petition to the High Court seeking the removal of all the restrictions and invalidating military regulations dating back to the 1940s that have allowed the Israeli authorities to control his movements.
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The hearing will be of intense interest to human rights groups all over the world. Some commentators have said it will be a test of the Israeli judiciary’s independence.
In recognition of the importance of the case, the president of the Supreme Court, Judge Aharon Barak, is taking charge of the panel. He has a reputation for standing up to successive Israeli governments on the issue of human rights.
Speaking at a university in the United States last year, he said: “Democracy cannot exist without the protection of individual human rights — rights so essential that they must be insulated from the power of the majority.”
Readers who wish to support Vanunu’s petition to the Israeli court can fill in the coupon in the print edition of the newspaper. The newspaper will forward completed coupons and any accompanying messages to the judges. Alternatively, readers may email messages of support to foreigndesk@sunday-times.co.uk