By Madeleine Collins

By all accounts it was an ordinary night, even by Kings Cross standards, when a young backpacker with the unforgettable name of Mordechai Vanunu stepped into the entrance hall of St John’s, East Sydney. The Moroccan Jew with halting English struck up a conversation with catechist David Smith, then a student at Moore College. He accepted the invitation to join a Bible study.
Like so many before him, Vanunu had walked through the door of St John’s looking for relief from a burdensome life. But the former nuclear engineer came seeking answers to a question that was plaguing his dreams, a question that lay in rolls of film at the bottom of his backpack.
As the weeks went by, the church played host to a chain of events that would be both Vanunu’s salvation and downfall. After long talks about the meaning of life he converted from Judaism to Christianity and was baptised. He handed in the rolls of film to be developed in a nearby pharmacy. He met a Columbian journalist in the church grounds, who seemed interested in his photos.
That same journalist would sell those photos to the British press. And suddenly the world was exposed to Dimona, a secret nuclear facility in Israel’s Negev desert of which Vanunu was a former employee. The truth was out; the Middle East’s staunch ally of the United States had nuclear weapons – and the whistleblower to prove it.
A short time later Vanunu, who was in London and trying to disappear, befriended a woman working undercover for the Israeli secret police. She lured him to Rome where he was kidnapped and drugged by Israeli authorities. He was sentenced for treason, espionage and betrayal of State secrets in a closed trial, and would spend the next 18 years in prison, almost 12 of those in solitary confinement. It was September 13, 1986.
Fast-forward to April 2004 and the Moroccan with the unforgettable name prepared to leave Shikma prison in Ashkelon, south of Tel Aviv, for the first time in almost two decades. Hundreds gathered to catch a glimpse of the prisoner dubbed Israel’s most hated man. The airwaves were filled with announcers placing bets to see who would be their country’s next Jack Ruby.
Now 50, Vanunu, greying, lean and well dressed, had expected to leave prison quietly. But the prison guards had failed to give any warning of the explosive scene that greeted him as he walked out: a bank of international media and a crowd on the brink of a riot. Anti-nuclear activists jostled with Israelis screaming in hatred at the traitor on the other side of the metal fence. Sunday Times journalist Peter Hounam who wrote the original story in 1986 was also in the crowd. When he saw Vanunu he burst into tears. Five weeks later Mr Hounam was arrested by Israeli police and imprisoned for 24 hours. He told Reuters he was accused of ‘spying on nuclear secrets and aggravated espionage’. Mr Hounam was in Israel making a documentary for the BBC about the nuclear whistleblower, who is banned from speaking to the foreign media.
David Smith has been Rector of Holy Trinity, Dulwich Hill for the past 13 years. He too made the journey to the prison gates. But he was not alone; a crew from Foreign Correspondent had been tailing him for days. That day he was wearing his clerical collar (“I really was hoping Morde would notice me at the prison, his brother had told him I was going to be there”). But his garb did not win him any points on the streets of Ashkelon. He was sworn at and spat upon.
David Smith had a family back in Australia, but his friend walked out of prison with just his brothers, Meir and Asher, by his side. His mother, father and other siblings disowned him long ago.
There was a defiant, impromptu press conference where Vanunu responded to the speculation that he had more secrets to tell. Answering only to questions in English, he had to yell to make himself heard. “To all those who are calling me traitor, I am proud and happy to do what I did. I suffered here for 18 years because I was a Christian.” His message was twofold: Israel needs to deal with Palestine and the Dimona plant should be opened for inspection.
Soon after he was hurried away to St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem. In the hysteria he did not see his old friend in the clerical collar.
But later that evening it all seemed worth it. The two men who had been corresponding regularly for two decades were able to talk, pray together and share communion. It was an end to long weary years for the prisoner who says he was continually mistreated and dehumanised at the hands of the guards.
“I’m conscious of the fact that there’s still so much churned up within him after 18 years, [but] he’s maintained his Christian faith,” Mr Smith says. “He’s still very much a man of prayer. He wears two crosses around his neck in case someone misses the first one. His faith is still very significant to him. As much as anything else it’s a badge of his identity. He hasn’t any more secrets to reveal, we all know that. I think he’s hated more because of his conversion than he is because he told the world about the nuclear weapons.”
But for all Vanunu’s new- found freedom, the man who brought him to Christ is not optimistic. “Denial of your faith is denial of your citizenship. To survive he has to get out of Israel.  Most people are armed – I would hate to see what would happen to him in public. I can’t see him getting more than a couple of blocks without someone putting a knife into him.”
Mr Vanunu has said recently that he wants to visit Australia to thank his friends at his former church, where a vigil is held every year in his honour, and is keen to marry, have children and live in the West.
But as a hot, dry summer descends over the Holy Land, Israel’s most hated man remains locked inside St George’s Cathedral, too nervous to venture outside except for a brief court appearance in late May (he has moved from one prison to the next, he tells friends.) He has been refused a visa to leave the country. As always, his supporters around the world are agitating the government to lift restrictions.
“He was really appreciating the little things,” says Mr Smith, “like being able to get up when he felt like it and go to bed when he felt like it.”
The man with halting English who walked into St John’s all those years ago is said to hold the world record for the longest time in solitary confinement.