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Israeli nuke activist marries Norwegian love

The Local Norway
The Local Norway - [email protected]
Israeli nuke activist marries Norwegian love
Mordechai Vanunu and Kristin Joachimsen at the wedding in Jerusalem. Photo: Facebook

Mordechai Vanunu, the man jailed for 18 years for leaking details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press, has married his long-term Norwegian girlfriend Kristin Joachimsen.

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Joachimsen, a newly appointed professor at the School of Theology in Oslo, married the Israeli activist in the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem on Tuesday morning. 
 
But the tough restrictions still imposed on the former nuclear technician by the Israeli government mean that he is still barred from leaving the country to live with, or even visit, Joachimsen in her native Norway. 
 
“The restrictions have just been renewed for another year,” Joachimsen told Norway’s ABCNyheter after the service. 
 
Liv Signe, foreign policy spokesman for Norway’s Centre Party said she is considering lobbying foreign minister Børge Brende to pressure Israel to grant the activist an exit visa. 
 
“I think Vanunu ought to come to Norway, and that we should give him a residence permit,” she said.
 
Vanunu in 1986 leaked details of Israel’s weapons programme to the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper, after which he went into hiding until he was lured to Italy by Mossad agents, drugged and abducted to Israel where ehe spent 18 years in prison, more than eleven of which took place in solitary confinement. 
 
He was released from prison in 2004, although he served further spells of three and six months in 2010 and 2007, for violating the terms of his parole. 
 
Vanunu, born an orthodox Jew, is a devout convert to Christianity, and his first stop after his release was to a nearby Anglican church. 
 
Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg, when she served as Minister of Local Government in 2004, instructed Norway’s Foreign Minister to reject Vanunu’s appeal for asylum in Norway. 
 
 
 

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