He was released from a federal prison in North Carolina and 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 U.S. Marshals Service.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Pollard’s release, saying that he had “longer for this day”.
“I have waited for this day for 30 long years, unbelievable”, Anne, his ex wife, told Army Radio, a radio station in Israel.
“After thirty long and hard years, Jonathan is finally reuniting with his family”.
Despite parole requirements that he not leave the USA without government permission for the next five years, Pollard has expressed a desire to renounce his American citizenship and move to Israel, where he is seen by some as a national hero.
The one-paragraph missive did not mention Pollard’s desire to immediately move to Israel, which would require a waiver of federal parole rules.
Under the terms of Pollard’s parole, he is expected to stay in the United States for between two to five years.
For decades, Pollard’s case had been a source of friction between the US and Israel, with numerous USA administrations considering but ultimately rejecting Israeli pleas to free him.
Esther Pollard released a photo of the two of them, with him sitting and her standing behind him leaning on his shoulders.
However, his lawyers argue that the conditions of his parole are not fair, as he is supposed to wear an ankle monitor and any corporation where he is employed will have their computers investigated along with his own with unfettered access by the government.
Jonathan Pollard and his wife following his release from federal prison.
There will be little fanfare of the event, and the Free Pollard organization, which has lobbied for his release for years, announced that no public events or rallies will take place to mark his release. He is challenging the terms of his parole, which his lawyers described as “onerous and oppressive”. “We say prayers for people that are sick, Israeli soldiers that need to be released, and Jonathan Pollard’s name is in there, and there’s pictures in the synagogue”.
The Walla website reported that Pollard’s attorneys also say that there is reason to believe that Pollard will pass on any more classified information or commit any other crime, since the data he gleaned is outdated and he can barely remember it.
Pollard was given a life sentence in 1987 for providing large amounts of classified USA government information to Israel.
Over the course of decades, Pollard’s prison cell became a kind of pilgrimage site for conservative Israeli politicians, who elevated Pollard’s case rather than helping him keep a low profile.
However, the unusual longevity of his imprisonment has led to a few Israeli leaders to call for Pollard’s release, a cause also championed by Senator John McCain, former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz and former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey.
For now, Pollard will live with his wife in an apartment in NY, where he has landed a job in the finance department of an investment firm, said Lauer, one of his lawyers.
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‘I would have been perfectly pleased if he had spent the rest of his life in jail’.
