Mordechi Vanunu, the Israeli Dimona technician who exposed Israel’s nuclear program, is due to be released today after completing an 18-year prison sentence, 11 of which he spent in solitary confinement, at an Israeli prison for revealing details of Israel’s clandestine nuclear arms program.

Vanunu, who has been adopted by an American couple and who has converted to Christianity in the 1980s, expressed no remorse: "I wanted to inform the world about what happened. It's not treason," and outside Israel "five or six billion people (see me)...as a positive figure."

Vanunu, in a videotaped meeting recently with security officers further expressed his opposition to the double standard saying that, "just like the Iraqi reactor was destroyed, I want the Israeli reactor destroyed," referring to Israel's 1981 bombing near Baghdad.

In statements made through relatives, Vanunu has said he has nothing to add to his 1986 disclosures to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper - which led analysts to conclude that Dimona had produced as many as 200 nuclear bombs and made Israel a military superpower.

Vanunu will still be stripped from his freedom and basic civil liberties upon his release. The restrictions imposed by Israel include:

1. the denial of travel documents,
2. restrictions on domestic travel and the prohibition on travel outside Israel,
3. interaction with foreign nationals by permission only,
4. ban on approaching foreign embassies and border ports,
5. ban on Media interviews,
6. and a ban on discussing Nuclear issues.

Nevertheless, Mordechi does not believe himself to be a threat: "I've been inside for 20 years, everything has changed. Science has advanced...so what I saw seems very outdated to me."

It is no secret that Israel has a nuclear program. Recently declassified US government documents have shown that President John F. Kennedy had warned Israel after American nuclear inspectors were given the run around at the Dimoma nuclear plant. Kennedy wrote Israel a letter expressing that US monitory aid to Israel was in jeopardy, three weeks later Kennedy was assassinated and no US president following Kennedy questioned Israel’s unregistered and illegal nuclear program.

Vanunu, is largely viewed as a brave man to many even a hero. Susannah York, a British actress and one of the many Vanunu supporters, named him a “man of honor and principal … one of the bravest men in recent times,” and it is exactly his principals that the occupying power fears. Challenging Israel's right to exist Vanunu declared: "There is no need for a Jewish state. There should be a Palestinian state. Whoever wants to be Jewish can live anywhere."

Released from prison, only to face danger from angry locals, government restrictions depriving him of his basic rights and freedom of expression, Vanunu awaits the moment he will receive the travel documents allowing him to leave this country for good. He aims to disassociate himself from Israel and to start his life away from the nation, Israel, he once served and defended.