Israel frees Vanunu

Hated by many fellow Israelis, disowned by his family but hailed as a hero by anti-nuclear campaigners , Mordechai Vanunu was freed today after serving 18 years in prison for revealing secrets that exposed his country as one of the world's top atomic powers.

Unrepentant and unbroken, despite what he called "cruel and barbaric treatment" at the hands of Israel's security services, Vanunu flashed V-for-victory signs as he was greeted by dozens of cheering supporters outside Shikma Prison in the coastal town of Ashkelon.

Israel's hardline government still regards him as a security threat, and has barred him from talking either to foreigners or the media, and from leaving the country for the next 12 months.

However, the first thing he did on leaving prison was to hold an impromptu press conference - seemingly with the agreement of the prison authorities - at which he declared: "I am proud and happy to do what I did." He said he had no more secrets to reveal and added: "I am now ready to start my life."

It is a declaration unlikely to be taken at face value by Ariel Sharon's government, which has launched a massive campaign to convince the world that Vanunu - who spent 11 years in solitary confinement - remains a danger to Israel's security.

"He still possesses state secrets, including some which he has not revealed," the Israeli defence ministry said.

Vanunu, 50, leaked pictures and details of the top-secret Dimona nuclear reactor to the Sunday Times in 1986, leading independent experts to conclude that Israel had amassed 100-200 nuclear warheads.

His revelations lifted the veil on Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity" and its cryptic pledge that it would not be the first to introduce atomic weapons to the Middle East.

A female agent of Israel's Mossad spy agency lured Vanunu from London to Rome, where he was abducted and taken back to Israel. He was convicted of treason in a closed-door trial and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

The years have not diminished Vanunu's bitterness at the treatment he received. Refusing to answer questions in Hebrew because of the suffering he said he sustained at Israeli hands, Vanunu - who converted to Christianity in the Eighties and who says there is no need for a Jewish state - said he had been mistreated because of his religion.

Mossad and the Shin Bet security services tried to rob him of his sanity by keeping him in solitary confinement but, he said, they "didn't succeed to make me crazy".

Outside the prison, supporters including actress Susannah York hailed him as a "peace hero", while counter-demonstrators booed. "He won't get out of here alive," opponents screamed as his adopted parents, Minnesota couple Nick and Mary Eoloff, arrived at the prison.

Ms York said: "You feel, 'Here is a hero for our times, a man who cannot be silenced'. I just say, 'Welcome back to life, Mordechai'."

Shinji Noma, from Hiroshima, said he had exchanged letters with Vanunu. "He wrote to me that his act was to stop a Hiroshima in the Middle East," Mr Noma said.

Vanunu - flanked by two of his brothers - said: "I am a symbol of the will of freedom. You cannot break the human spirit." He will reportedly live in an apartment complex in the Jaffa district of Tel Aviv. He is forbidden from going within 100 yards of a foreign embassy for the next six months. His phone will be bugged.

Campaigners are planning a legal battle to let him seek a new life abroad, probably in America.