Pollard was convicted of spying for Israel in 1987 while he was working as a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst for transferring loads classified U.S. documents to Israeli handlers.
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Attorneys for Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard announced on Friday that they are planning to appeal the conditions of his parole just hours after he was released from a federal penitentiary following a 30-year incarceration.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said simply that he had “longed for this day”. “After three long and hard decades Jonathan is at last reunited with his family”, said Netanyahu, who had long pressed for releasing Pollard.
Although the release was seen as a festive moment, Ariel urged Israelis to “remember the harsh attitude” of senior US officials over the years, including what he said was a presidential promise from Obama in his first term that was not kept. President Obama has the power to amend that rule and allow him to return to Israel.
His was among the highest-profile spy sagas in modern American history, a case that became a diplomatic sticking point.
A spokesman for his Israeli supporters group had no immediate word on Pollard’s whereabouts after his release.
Netanyahu has instructed Israelis to stay low-key about Pollard’s release because of concern that too warm a celebration might damage efforts to persuade the USA government to let him leave for Israel sooner. He pleaded guilty in 1986 to conspiracy to commit espionage.
Does anyone think that Pollard will be forced to wait five years to go to Israel?
The prosecutor who handled the case, former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, said it is legitimate for the government to be concerned that Pollard might still have secrets to tell. But the White House has said it would not intervene.
According to a report in The New York Times, the documents were presented as part of a petition brought forth by Pollard’s lawyers seeking to cancel some of the restrictions placed on him as part of the parole terms.
Though Pollard was branded a traitor in the United States, many in Israel considered him a Jewish American hero, who had acted out of conviction to protect the Jewish state.
Both the Justice Department and Pollard’s lawyers have so far declined to discuss his parole conditions, but one longtime supporter, Rabbi Pesach Lerner of NY, told a radio interviewer this month that Pollard would have to abide by a curfew and wear a Global Positioning System unit to track his movements.
The Israeli news media reported that Mr. Netanyahu and assistants of Mr. Pollard were discouraging public hints of celebration at his release to avoid antagonizing Washington.
Pollard’s lawyers have shown similar discretion in recent days, refusing to give details of the prisoner’s plans once he is freed. But in 1995, Israel granted him citizenship, and two years later admitted he was their agent. “He did a crime and he deserved to serve some time, but he was really made an example of, and served way more time for doing a crime that really didn’t hurt anybody”. But the talks fell apart, and Pollard remained in prison.
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Thirty years behind bars but now Jonathan Pollard a former US Navy analyst who passed secrets to Israel has been released from prison.
