his conditions, which were rejected. After 33 days, Vanunu ended his hunger strike. On 30 August 1987, Vanunu's trial opened. He was charged with treason, aggravated espionage, and collection of secret information with intent to impair state security. The trial, held in secret, took place in the Jerusalem District Court before Chief Justice Eliyahu Noam and Judges Zvi Tal and Shalom Brenner. Vanunu was initially represented by Amnon Zichroni, then by Avigdor Feldman, a prominent Israeli civil and human rights lawyer. The prosecutor was Uzi Hasson. Vanunu was denied contact with the media, but he inscribed the details of his abduction (or "hijacking", as he put it), on the palm of his hand, which he held against the van's window while being transported to court, for the waiting press to get that information. The death penalty in Israel is restricted to special circumstances, and only two executions have ever taken place there. In 2004, former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit told Reuters that the option of extrajudicial execution was considered in 1986, but rejected because "Jews don't do that to other Jews." Treason is a capital offense under Israeli law, and Vanunu could have faced the death penalty, but prosecutor Uzi Hasson announced that he would not seek the death penalty. During his trial, Vanunu was brought to court wearing a motorcycle helmet to conceal his face. On 1 September 1987, while being brought into court, Vanunu tried to take off his helmet and started shouting in an apparent attempt to talk to the reporters nearby. His guards stopped him using physical force, and police sirens were turned on to drown out his voice. Peter Hounam and Frank Barnaby both testified as defense witnesses for Vanunu. Before appearing in court, Hounam was warned that he would be arrested if he reported on the proceedings or his own testimony. He was allowed to report that he "gave evidence" regarding his "relationship" with Vanunu.https://fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/barnaby.pdf On 28 March 1988, Vanunu was convicted. He was sentenced to eighteen years of imprisonment from the date of his abduction in Rome. The Israeli government refused to release the transcript of the court case until, under a threat of legal action, it agreed to let censored extracts be published in Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper, in late 1999. Vanunu served his sentence at Shikma Prison in Ashkelon, where he was held in administratively imposed solitary confinement. On 3