TEL AVIV, Israel, May 27 (UPI) -- Israel's Shabak security service Thursday night released British journalist Peter Hounam following a domestic and international uproar over his arrest.
Emerging from the drab police headquarters at Jerusalem's Russian Compound, the gray-bearded journalist said the Israelis had kept him in solitary confinement overnight, questioning him for four and a half hours. His attorney, Avigdor Feldman, said Hounam had been questioned until 4 a.m. Thursday.
"They treated me with a degree of contempt," Hounam said. "They believed I have been spying on Israel's nuclear secrets and accused me of aggravated espionage."
Hounam then returned to his east Jerusalem hotel to collect his belongings before going to Tel Aviv. He is due to leave Israel over the weekend.
Hounam was the Sunday Times journalist who published an account of Israel's top-secret nuclear program in 1986. The story was based on interviews with Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona reactor, and pictures that Vanunu had secretly taken.
The Israelis then lured Vanunu to Italy, kidnapped him, sentenced him to jail and released him on April 21 after 17 ½ years.
Hounam, who has kept in touch with Vanunu, has been in Israel for more than a month working for the Sunday Times and on a documentary for the British Broadcasting Corp.
Israeli security sources said he incessantly sought exclusive interviews with Vanunu. On April 26, the security authorities told Vanunu he should not meet Hounam but the British journalist reportedly met him several times, the security sources added.
The restrictions imposed on Vanunu, upon his release from the Ashkelon jail, stipulated he may not "be in touch, nor exchange information in any way with foreign citizens or foreign residents."
However, there was no ban on meeting Israelis, including Israeli journalists, and discussing matters other than his work in Dimona. This appeared to be the loophole that Hounam used.
Saturday an Israeli activist in the committee for Vanunu, Yael Lotan, interviewed Vanunu at the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. An Israeli security source said Hounam had briefed her "in great detail before and during the interview."
Lotan confirmed having conducted the interview. "There was not one word, or even half a word that did not appear in the media in the past," she said.
The security source maintained Vanunu talked about his work in Dimona.
The censor asked the BBC to see the tapes but Sunday the authorities seized them from a BBC representative, Chris Mitchell, who tried to leave the country with them.
Mitchell was released without the tapes.
The Israeli security authorities maintained Hounam was "a very dominant figure" who was intensively involved in the Vanunu affair "and tried to reach sensitive and exclusive information and publish it.
"In our view Hounam is one of the main sources for the leakage of state secrets," the security source argued.
Four or five plainclothesmen arrested Hounam as he approached Lotan's home in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, in order to go out to dinner.
The security men took him back to his hotel and searched his room. Hounam managed to get away for a moment and tell a woman, who reportedly turned out to be an Amnesty secretary, that he was arrested and that she should alert the Sunday Times and his family.
The Shabak dealt with him as they would with a suspected spy or terrorist. It barred him from meeting his lawyer -- a four-day ban was issued, according to Feldman -- and obtained a gag order prohibiting publication of details concerning his arrest.
However, once the news was out it was difficult to stop the storm.
Israeli radio topped its news with his arrest, interviewed his lawyer and foreign correspondents, and noted he was a foreign correspondent doing his job.
Newspapers around the world ran the story and that marred Israel's reputation as a free democratic state.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents foreign correspondents covering Israel and the Palestinian territories, expressed "astonishment and deep concern" over the arrest as well as "the manner in which that arrest took place, without allowing him his basic rights of access to legal counsel."
The FPA demanded the authorities "come forward with their case against Mr. Hounam and allow him his democratic rights."
British Ambassador to Israel Simon McDonald Thursday met Israeli Justice Minister Tommy Lapid and asked for consular access to Hounam.
Feldman, who is also Vanunu's lawyer, appealed to the Jerusalem District Court to let him meet the journalist. In negotiations with the Justice Ministry, he won permission to see Hounam a short while later and talk to him by 6 p.m. The court upheld the agreement.
"There is no suspicion against him. No evidence against him," Feldman told reporters.
Suspicions that he had a cassette with a recording of Vanunu discussing secrets turned out to be "unfounded. It was all in the imagination of the Shabak agents," Feldman said.
"This shows how the Shabak treats democratic values such as freedom of expression and freedom of the press," added Feldman's associate, Michael Sefard.
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, whom the arrest reportedly surprised, wanted Hounam released. After sunset, Feldman accompanied Hounam out.
"It was a farce," Feldman said.
The arrest boomeranged. It once again focused world attention on Vanunu and Israel's nuclear program, something Israel would like to avoid. Lotan said the text of the interview was already with the Sunday Times in London and would be published.
Several copies of the filmed interview were made. Mitchell reportedly told Israeli TV the BBC has a copy and will broadcast it. Another copy, held at the Anglican Church, was surrendered to the Israelis.
