A British journalist said Israel held him in a "dungeon with excrement on the walls" before releasing him today, a day after he was arrested over contacts with nuclear whistleblower Mr Mordechai Vanunu.
"They accused me of spying on nuclear secrets and aggravated espionage. It is laughable," Mr Peter Hounam told reporters as he walked out of a Jerusalem detention centre.
Mr Hounam, who broke Mr Vanunu's account of Israeli atomic secrets in 1986 in Britain's Sunday Times, was arrested yesterday in connection with an as yet unbroadcast television interview that Israel said he arranged with the former nuclear technician.
Security officials, briefing foreign reporters about an arrest some Israeli politicians described as having portrayed Israel as an opponent of a free press, said they had wanted to see if Mr Hounan had classified material in his possession.
"In the interview, Vanunu repeats details regarding the (Dimona) nuclear research facility in obvious violation of the briefings he received prior to his release," one official said.
Mr Hounan, he added, handed over audio tapes of the interview, which the official said was conducted by an Israeli national in an attempt by the British journalist to bypass a state ban on contacts between Mr Vanunu and the foreign press.