Mordechai Vanunu served 18 years in prison for providing information about Israel’s alleged nuclear capabilities to a British newspaper • In 2015, Vanunu’s Norwegian wife applied for him to be allowed to live in Norway under family reunification laws.
Norway offered on Friday to let Israeli nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu live in Oslo with his Norwegian wife, but she said it was unclear whether Israel would allow him to travel.
Vanunu, 62, married theology professor Kristin Joachimsen in Jerusalem in 2015 after first meeting her in Israel almost a decade earlier.
She applied for him to be allowed to come to Norway under family reunification laws and a spokesman for the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration said permission had been granted.
Vanunu had applied for political asylum in the Scandinavian country in 2004.
Vanunu was jailed and served an 18-year sentence for leaking top-secret details and pictures of an alleged Israeli nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper in 1986. Although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its nuclear weapons capability, the information provided by Vanunu led experts to conclude the Dimona nuclear reactor where he worked had produced fissile material for as many as 200 atomic warheads.
Alleging he was a security risk and might have new secrets to tell, Israeli defense authorities imposed strict conditions on Vanunu after his release from jail in 2004 that prevented him from traveling abroad.
Joachimsen said the Israeli restrictions were up for review in November and expressed hopes they would be lifted. “We have waited long enough for the case to be solved on Israel’s side,” she said.
The restrictions, upheld by Israel’s Supreme Court, have been condemned by international human rights groups.
