The Israeli state has not finished with Mordechai Vanunu, released last year after serving 18 years for espionage for revealing the existence of Israel's top secret nuclear programme.

Today, Mr Vanunu was charged by a Jerusalem court with 22 breaches of the ultra-strict conditions imposed on his release from prison.

Under the terms of his parole, Mr Vanunu was banned from leaving Israel and from talking to foreigners. The conditions were imposed for a year and were due to be reconsidered next week.

Today, however, he was charged with one count of trying to leave the country, and 21 further counts of violating his parole by speaking to foreign journalists.

An 11-page indictment lists 14 witnesses, mostly police officers, suggesting that he has been kept under close surveillance. The Israeli authorities say that they fear he may have more nuclear secrets to share with the world.

"They charged me for giving interviews to the media and for not respecting the restrictions of my release. They're not charging me with releasing secrets," he told the AFP news agency from his residence in east Jerusalem.

"They want a trial but my lawyers are working on it. I'm not worried."

Mr Vanunu did not appear in court. No warrant has been issued for his arrest and no date has yet been fixed for any trial. If found guilty of breaching his parole, Mr Vanunu could face a return to jail.

Mr Vanunu revealed the existence of Israel's top secret nuclear programme at the Dimona facility in the Negev desert in an interview with the Sunday Times in 1986.

He fled his country to Europe, but was tracked down by Mossad agents, captured in a honey-trap operation and brought back to Israel. He was convicted in 1988, and served much of his sentence in solitary confinement.

Behind bars, he became a hero to peace activists and a hate-figure to patriotic Israelis. His disclosures led experts to conclude that Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds of warheads. Israel has followed a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying it has nuclear weapons.

Since his release from prison, he has been living in the compound of a Christian church in Jerusalem. He has said repeatedly that he has nothing more to tell and wants to leave the country to start his life afresh.

He has defied his parole by granting interviews to foreign news media many times. He was also stopped by Israeli police on Christmas Eve while attempting to attend Midnight Mass in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, outside his permitted area of travel.

In September, he told the AP news agency that he wanted to replace his Israeli citizenship with a foreign one, perhaps Palestinian.

"In Israel, I am regarded as a traitor ... and since my release they are not respecting my human rights, my freedom of speech my freedom of movement," he said at the time.

The Justice Ministry said today that Mr Vanunu had flouted his release conditions "in a systematic fashion".

"Since his release Vanunu has maintained contact with numerous foreign journalists and even told some of them he was aware he was violating the terms of his release by meeting and exchanging information with them," it said.

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