Jonathan Pollard was released from prison Friday after 30 years behind bars for spying for Israel, his case a longtime irritant in relations between the two allies. But complaints continued from his supporters that he has been treated unfairly.
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He was released from a federal prison in North Carolina and quickly headed to NY, where he was set up for electronic monitoring as required under his parole, according to spokesmen for the Federal Bureau of Prisons and US Marshals Service. His lawyers have said that they have secured a job and housing for him in the NY area, without elaborating.
Pollard will not be permitted to leave the United States for as long as five years under federal parole rules, although he has asked to immigrate to Israel, saying he would relinquish his us citizenship and agree never to return to the United States as a condition.
Pollard has indicated he wants to move to Israel, where he is certain to receive a hero’s welcome.
His parole was welcomed by Israel’s current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said “after three long and hard decades Jonathan is at last reunited with his family”.
“We were grateful that in his statement several months ago when he was notified he was being released, Jonathan Pollard specifically thanked the National Council of Young Israel, Rabbi Pesach Lerner, and NCYI President Farley Weiss, for our work over many years to get to this day”.
Pollard, 61, has been imprisoned since November 21, 1985 when he was arrested on charges of spying for Israel as a civilian intelligence analyst in the U.S. Navy.
“Now his supporters here and in the U.S. are lobbying American officials to release Pollard from parole as well, and allow him to move to Israel”.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the crime merited a life sentence, given the amount of damage that Mr. Pollard did to the United States government”, said Joseph diGenova, who prosecuted the case as US attorney in Washington, D.C. “I would have been perfectly pleased if he had spent the rest of his life in jail”. He pleaded guilty in 1986 to conspiracy to commit espionage and was given a life sentence a year later.
Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press. “I tried to serve two countries at the same time”. His lawyers immediately went to court to challenge parole conditions that would let the government track his movements and monitor his computer use.
The White House said it had no intention of altering the conditions of Jonathan Pollard’s release from jail to enable him to travel to Israel.
“Obviously, the one thing at issue is the requirement that he remains in the United States”, Rhodes said.
Successive USA administrations had resisted Israeli calls to show the unrepentant Pollard clemency, though Washington did, at times, consider an early release as part of efforts to revive talks on Palestinian statehood in Israel-occupied territories.
Jonathan Pollard and his wife Esther in the first photograph following his release from prison.
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More details about his plans were expected to emerge after his release. His lawyers said he would be working as an analyst at an investment firm.
