Vananu journalist 'barred from seeing lawyer'

The British journalist who helped reveal Israel’s nuclear secrets, arrested by Israel this week, is being barred from meeting with his lawyer, the lawyer said today.

Peter Hounam, who interviewed Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu in 1986, has been in Israel since Vanunu’s release from prison last month.

Hounam was arrested yesterday by the Shin Bet internal security service.

Hounam’s lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, said in Jerusalem he has not been able to see his client since the arrest. Hounam was expected to appear in court later today as police request permission to continue holding him.

Israeli authorities have not said why he was arrested due to a gag order.

In 1986, Vanunu gave the Sunday Times information and photographs from Israel’s top secret Dimona nuclear reactor.

The newspaper published an extensive article under Hounan’s byline that led experts to determine that Israel had the world’s sixth-largest nuclear arsenal.

Vanunu was released on April 21 after serving an 18-year prison sentence for espionage and treason. Hounam, now a freelance journalist based in Perthshire, was in Israel to greet Vanunu and prepare a documentary about his case for the BBC.

A BBC spokeswoman in London said they were “very concerned” about Hounam’s arrest.

Under conditions imposed on Vanunu with his release, he is not allowed to give interviews or meet with foreigners. Feldman, who also represents Vanunu, said Hounam had not violated any of the restrictions and called the arrest a farce.

“The man was arrested for no reason. He was arrested as part of the security establishment’s never-ending obsession with Vanunu,” Feldman told Israel Army Radio.

Danny Seaman, director of the Israeli Government Press Office, said that if Hounam was arrested it was for serious offences. He said his office had issued Hounam press credentials two weeks ago without any problems.

“This is irregular and so I assume they did not arrest him as a journalist but because they have real reasons,” Seaman told the radio. “The Shin Bet is a serious organisation that deals with serious issues.”

Witnesses said Hounan was concerned as Shin Bet agents took him away from his Jerusalem hotel.

“I was sitting in the garden when he was brought in by five plainclothes security men,” said Donatella Rovera, a researcher with the human rights group Amnesty International, who was staying at the same hotel.

“As they were bringing him through the garden he broke away from them and came running to my table. He said ‘I’m being arrested, tell the Sunday Times,”’ she said, adding that he was immediately pulled away.

Sunday Times foreign editor Sean Ryan said Hounam, 60, had been in Israel since April 16 to cover Vanunu’s release for the newspaper.

“We are trying to establish exactly what the situation is, where he is now and why he has been detained,” Ryan said.

The Foreign Office said it had heard about the arrest of a British journalist, but still did not have any official confirmation.