US denies Pollard-Barghouti release deal
Last night I told you all that a deal was afoot to exchange Marwan Barghouti for Jonathan Pollard. This morning, I supplemented that post to tell you why I thought the deal makes sense. The US is now denying that any such deal exists. According to Army Radio, which first broke the story last night, the US embassy released a statement saying that, "the case is closed, and Pollard was serving his sentence."Israel's ministry declined comment on last night's report, and US embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle called the report "ridiculous speculation."
Jonathan Pollard's wife Esther opposed the deal, describing it as "nothing but public relations."
UPDATE 9:00 PM"President George Bush agreed to free Jonathan before Pessah, but Israel isn't really interested in that," she said in an interview with Army Radio.
Pollard's lawyer in Israel, Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, said that the powers that be in Jerusalem were not interested in Pollard's immediate release. "Israel isn't insisting on Pollard's release. If Israel were to give the Americans the real version of events, which they want to have, Pollard would already be free."
HaAretz is now reporting that the 'real version of events' referred to above is contained in a document held by Rafi Eitan, who was elected to the Knesset last month as the number one candidate of the Pensioners' party. Leitner says that she will petition the High Court of Justice to block any attempt to appoint Eitan a minister.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:26 PM
1 Comments:
No one in this american administratio will ever release pollard. the deal story was made up. Especially with an entire administration who were all part of the intelligence community during pollards case.
anyway, new upadates on a different american / israeli prisoner
http://www.arutzsheva.org/news.php3?id=102028
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