that other whistleblower.. about to be released

Vanunu, aged 51, has endured some of the harshest punishment ever meted out to an Israeli prisoner since his dramatic revelation in The Sunday Times newspaper in 1986 that Israel had a secret nuclear weapons plant in the Negev that had assembled up to 200 warheads. Vanunu had been employed for nine years as a technician at the plant, which was hidden under a textiles factory in the town of Dimona.

The revelations blew a hole in Israel's long-standing policy of "nuclear ambiguity" -- its refusal to confirm or deny that it has nuclear bombs -- and caused huge embarrassment to its superpower ally, America, which had agreed to turn a blind eye to Israel's development of weapons of mass destruction.

During his 18 years in detention, Vanunu has been held in a cell measuring just two metres by three. For the first two and a half years a light bulb burned continuously in his cell so that he could not tell night from day. When he was briefly allowed out of the cell he was followed by guards videoing him. Basic rights, such as access to newspapers and TV, were also denied. Amnesty International described his ordeal as "cruel, inhuman and degrading".