Jerusalem PostMonday, October 13, 1997 12 Tishri 5758 Family of nuclear cancer victim awarded NIS 2.5m. By LIAT COLLINS TEL AVIV (October 13) - In a precedent setting ruling, a Tel Aviv District Court judge last week orderedNIS 2.5 million be paid to the family of an employee at the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona whodied of cancer in 1989 aged 43. The judge ruled there was a link between his death and work.The man, Haim Itah, worked in maintenance at the center from 1963 until his death from leukemia. Judge HilaGerstel accepted the claim by lawyer Ilan Kanner that his cancer was linked to Itah's work at the NNRC,where he had apparently been exposed to radiation leaks. This included an accident in 1980.Scores of similar claims by other NNRC workers or theirfamilies are still going through the legal system.Gerstel was scathing in her criticism of the Atomic Energy Commission, which is in charge of the nuclearresearch centers at Dimona and Nahal Sorek. She wrote in her ruling that the management had shown"contempt for human life" and had not taken into account the cumulative effect of exposure from outsidesources, such as medical or dental X-rays.Kanner complained that the legal case, which lasted fiveyears, was hindered by difficulty in accessing relevantmaterial under secret classification. The judge called the evidence of the central witness, a senior managementofficial at the NNRC, "unreliable" and said he had tried to portray a rosy picture of the center's safetymeasures.The NNRC did not prove that Itah wore a radiation tag or that it was monitored or that he was briefed on thenecessary safety precautions.A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Commission said in response that the state attorney would appeal thedecision in the Supreme Court. He said the AEC, NNRC, and the Nahal Sorek Research Center do all theycan to ensure the safety and health of employees and operate according to the highest Western standards.He said the AEC is monitored by external bodies, including the supreme council for nuclear safety, appointedby the Prime Minister's Office, the State Comptroller, and Knesset committees. The AEC official said a HealthMinistry survey showed that the incidence of cancer among NNRC workers does not deviate from thenational level.The spokesman said Itah was not exposed to radiation above the amount equivalent of two CT medical scansin his years at the center. He also said the court demanded workers report all additional medical exposure toradiation outside of the NNRC, such as X-rays and CT scans, although the international Atomic EnergyAgency regulations, Israeli law, and legislation in the Western world do not require this be taken into accountwhen work rosters are drawn up.***************************************************************JERUSALEM, Oct 12 (AFP) - An Israeli court has ordered the government to pay 700,000 dollars compensation to the family of a victim of radiation at one of the country's nuclear plants, the Yediot Aharonot daily said Sunday. The Tel Aviv court accused the management of the Dimona nuclear centre in the southern Negev desert of "having treated the needs of employees for protection with contempt," describing their attitude as "revolting," said the paper. It ruled during the past week that the cancer which killed Haim Ita, who died in 1989, had been caused by radiation and that his family should be compensated. Relatives of Ita and other employees who contracted illnesses while working in the Jewish state's nuclear industry have been fighting a battle for compensation against the state for several years. The court's ruling goes against the judgement of Israel's atomic energy commission, which has consistenly ruled that all secrecy measures surrounding the Dimona plant should be maintained for security reasons. Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, but according to foreign military analysts between 100 and 200 nuclear bombs have been made at Dimona. ***************************************************************JERUSALEM (Reuters) Oct. 12 - An Israeli court, in an unprecedented ruling, has awarded damages to the family of a late employee at the Dimona nuclear reactor and criticized safety practices at the plant, which it said showed ``contempt for human life.'' Court spokesman Moshe Gorali said Sunday the decision was the first ruling of its kind involving the 40-year-old ultra-secret plant, where foreign reports say Israel manufactures nuclear weapons. In its ruling, the Tel Aviv district court last week awarded $718,000 in damages to the family of Dimona reactor worker Haim Itach, who died at age 43 in 1989 of cancer he contracted in 1980, Gorali said. ``The entire ruling puts the responsibility on the reactor, on the state, in very tough language,'' lawyer Ilan Kener, who represented Itach's family, told Israel Radio. At the Dimona reactor it was not constantly determined how much radiation from outside the facility -- in such forms as medical X-rays -- employees absorbed, Kener quoted the ruling as saying. It said ignoring exposure to radiation other than from the place of work was ``a matter of policy.'' ``In the respondent's position there is a clear closing of the eyes and even contempt for human life, since indeed radiation does accumulate in the body and the body does not differentiate between different sources of radiation,'' the lawyer quoted the ruling as saying. The court said an employer ``with his knowledge of the danger of the accumulation of radiation from different sources must make sure all the time that he is not endangering his worker by exposing him to radiation. ``There are simple and easy ways to do this and the approach of the employer and its ignoring (them) is enraging if not worse than that,'' the court said. Gorali confirmed that details of the case carried by Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper Sunday were accurate. The paper said that the court accepted Kener's argument ``that there was a high likelihood that Haim Itach fell ill with cancer after exposure to nuclear radiation because of the negligent safety policy of the reactor's management.'' Itach was a maintenance worker at the Dimona reactor for 19 years. Before falling ill, Itach had been exposed to three ``localized radiation accidents,'' incidents in which the leaks did not escape the reactor. Two years after the second accident, Itach was found to have cancer. Kener said there were other cases like Itach's but he did not elaborate. The lawyer said the main problem in fighting such cases was the extreme secrecy surrounding the Dimona reactor. Built in the 1950s, Dimona was initially described to the world as a textile factory and later as a non-military plant under an Israeli policy of deliberate ambiguity that continues to this day. In 1986, a junior technician at the plant, Mordechai Vanunu, told the London Times that Israel had built 200 nuclear bombs at Dimona, and provided photographs of the plant's interior. He was subsequently lured from Britain to Rome by a woman agent of Israel's Mossad secret service and taken by force from there to Israel. He was tried and convicted of handing over state secrets and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He has served 11 years of his sentence, all of them in solitary confinement. ***************************************************************TEL AVIV, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- An Israeli court has recognized that work at a nuclear reactor caused cancer, and awarded the family of a deceased employee the equivalent of $714,000. But the Atomic Energy Committee says it follows ``advanced Western standards'' and will appeal the decision. The case highlights an argument on how safe are Israel's two nuclear reactors, at Dimona and Yavne. According to unconfirmed foreign reports, Israel produces nuclear weapons at the bigger reactor, in Dimona. Dozens of nuclear reactor employees have sued the state, claiming they had been insufficiently protected. Usually they have difficulties proving their case because data from the reactors is highly classified. However, last Thursday Tel Aviv district court said Haim Itah, a maintenance man in the Dimona reactor, was exposed to three ``local radiation accidents.'' Itah was found to have cancer about two years after the third accident and died at the age of 43. District Judge Hila Gerstel blasted management's attitude. ``The danger of radiation is one of the worst ... and it's not enough to close one's eyes and to take routine precautions,'' she wrote. The Atomic Energy Committee countered that Itah was exposed to levels of radiation which are ``less than the exposure in two medical examinations such as C.T.'' It said the state attorney will take the case to the Supreme Court.