Mr. Pollard was arrested in 1985 on charges of spying for Israel and sentenced to life in prison
Jonathan Pollard leaves a New York court house following his release from prison early on Friday.
Photo:
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
By
Rory Jones in Tel Aviv and
Devlin Barrett in Washington
TEL AVIV—Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was released Friday after serving 30 years in an American prison, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, ending years of tension between Israel and the U.S. over his fate.
Mr.
Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel welcomed the release of Mr.
Pollard, 61, who was arrested in 1985 on charges of spying for Israel
and sentenced to life in prison.
“As someone who raised
Jonathan’s case for years with successive American presidents, I had
long hoped this day would come,” he said, adding that Mr. Pollard had
been reunited with his family.
As a civilian analyst with the
U.S. Navy, he removed a large number of classified documents from
government files and gave them to an Israeli handler over an 18-month
period, according to U.S. officials. He eventually pleaded guilty and
was sentenced to life in prison.
Successive Israeli governments
have argued that a life sentence for spying on a close ally was too
harsh, and that Mr. Pollard should be released early.
But previous attempts were repudiated by the U.S., in part because senior intelligence officials objected.
The case became a continuing source of friction between the U.S. and Israel, and a national sensation in Israel.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons agreed to free Mr. Pollard in July,
after a parole commission determined he should be released early from
his sentence based on good behavior and that he was unlikely to commit
new crimes if freed.
The release comes as relations between
Israel and the U.S. are at odds over the Obama administration’s decision
to pursue a nuclear deal with Iran and world powers.
U.S. officials have denied that the move to free Mr. Pollard was politically motivated.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
“Throughout
the years, we have felt Jonathan’s pain, and felt responsible and
obliged to bring about his release,” Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement Friday.
U.S.
lawmakers representing Mr. Pollard lobbied their Justice Department to
allow the spy to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move to Israel, where
his wife resides. He was granted Israeli citizenship in 1995.
Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Eliot Engel, both New York Democrats, wrote to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking that Mr. Pollard be allowed to move to Israel.
The
Justice Department hasn’t responded to the request, and it appears more
likely that he will have to serve a five-year term of probation in the
U.S.
Under the current terms of Mr. Pollard’s parole, which could
last five years or longer, he must stay in the U.S. and get prior
approval for any travel outside the district where he will live.
Mr.
Pollard was released in the early morning hours from a federal prison
in North Carolina, officials said. Hours after he walked out of prison,
his lawyers announced they had filed a lawsuit in federal court in New
York seeking to end what they called the “unreasonable and unlawful’’
parole conditions imposed on Mr. Pollard now that he is free.
The lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman,
are contesting the Justice Department’s decision that he wear a GPS
tracking bracelet to monitor his location at all times, and submit to
unfettered monitoring and inspection of his computers, as well as those
of any employer that hires him. The lawyers said they were told these
conditions were put in place to make sure he doesn't disclose any
classified information in the future.
But to release him, the
Parole Commission had already determined that Mr. Pollard wasn't likely
to commit further crimes upon release—and Messrs. Lauer and Semmelman
argue the parole conditions make no sense based on that previous
determination.
“The notion that, having fought for and finally
obtained his release after serving 30 years in prison, Mr. Pollard will
now disclose stale 30-year-old information to anyone is preposterous.
Apart from the fact that the information is useless, disclosing it will
result in Mr. Pollard’s swift return to prison to serve out his life
sentence,’’ the lawyers said in a joint statement.
Israelis hold placards demanding Jonathan Pollard’s release at protest in Jerusalem in 2014
Photo:
Reuters
Write to Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com Corrections & Amplifications
As
a civilian analyst with the U.S. Navy, Jonathan Pollard removed a large
number of classified documents from government files and gave them to
an Israeli handler over an 18-month period, according to U.S. officials.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that it was an 18-year period.
Sauerkraut; Schengen; HIV; Global Cooling; BataclanBionicWoman; Putin; Privilege; female Viagra; Site Intelligence Group; Darkweb; Farage; Anonymous; Tourette's; Barbie; "Going Dark": ISIS Song, and all your usual Listening whilst doing bad French Impersonations to piss off your Politically Correct Colleagues favourites.
Nicholas Kollerstrom – Terror Attacks, Hidden Truths & Global Agenda
Nicholas is an English writer and a historian of science. he is the author of several books, including “Gardening and Planting by the Moon”, “Newton’s Forgotten Lunar Theory”, “Crop Circles”, and “Terror on the Tube”. He has also written entries for the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers.
He’s been involved in a variety of issues as a political activist. In 1986 he co-founded the Belgrano Action Group after the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano, and in 2007 he argued that the 77 bombings in London had not been carried out by the men accused.
Nicholas has also had a chapter published in the new ‘Nobody died at Sandy Hook’, edited by Jim Fetzer, this has gained 26 5-star amazon reviews in just the first couple of weeks.
VANCOUVER — There is evidence the RCMP broke the law while conducting
a high-profile terrorism sting and must hand over confidential legal
documents, says a B.C. Supreme Court judge.
Justice Catherine Bruce has not yet ruled whether the RCMP entrapped
John Nuttall and Amanda Korody into plotting to blow up the B.C.
legislature in 2013, but she said in a ruling released Wednesday that
the Mounties may be guilty of knowingly facilitating a terrorist act.
“In my view, the defence have raised at least a prima facie case that
the RCMP officers involved in Project Souvenir were engaged in unlawful
acts during the undercover operation,” wrote Bruce, referring to the
operation by its code name.
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