After 30 Years, Jonathan Pollard Released from Prison
After spending 30 years in prison, Jonathan Pollard, an American who was convicted of spying for Israel, was released Friday morning.
Pollard, who as a Navy intelligence analyst passed classified documents to Israel, was released from a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, after receiving parole on a life sentence, ending a long imprisonment that has been a constant irritant in relations between the United States and Israel.
As per the terms of his parole, Pollard has to check in regularly with a parole officer for a year and can be returned to prison for poor behavior. He is not permitted to leave the United States for five years, to give interviews or to go online, amid other conditions that are expected to be revealed Friday.
The official Free Pollard campaign and Pollard’s attorneys have declined to comment on the parole conditions, but they did encourage US congress members to ask the Justice Department to ease them. World renowned criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who represented Pollard in the past, told The Jerusalem Post that although such parole conditions were not unprecedented, they are “totally irrational.”
“He has no classified information, so he should be able to talk to the press, go online and go to Israel, where he’s a citizen,” Dershowitz said. “It’s an abuse of the discretion that parole authorities have in a case like this. Frankly, I think part of the reason they don’t want him to go to Israel is that they don’t want him to be a hero there or influence Israeli politics with his conservative views. It’s a political decision, and with him, it’s been about politics all along.”
“The people of Israel welcome the release of Jonathan A. Pollard,” Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “As someone who raised Jonathan’s case for years with successive American presidents, I had long hoped this day would come,” he said.
