Israel Matzav

Pollard's lawyers file for clemency

Lawyers for Jonathan Pollard have filoed a petition for clemency from President Obama based upon new revelations of US malfeasance made by Pollard's Mossad handler, Rafi Eitan and former US assistant secretary of defense Lawrence J. Korb, among others.

Eitan, who was Pollard’s handler, revealed on Thursday after press time that the US had violated an oral agreement with Israel to release Pollard after 10 years. In an interview with Israel Radio, Eitan also accused the US of deliberately perpetrating a travesty of justice by violating Pollard’s plea agreement and slapping him with what he called a grossly disproportionate life sentence.

He pointed out that at the time of Pollard’s sentencing in 1987, secret charges were laid against Pollard blaming him for the crimes of a Russian mole within American intelligence, Aldrich Ames. Pollard was neither informed of these charges nor given a chance to challenge them in a court of law.

Eitan said the US steadfastly refused to release Pollard even after Ames was exposed and arrested in 1994, “for their own reasons.”

Eitan called for the US to release Pollard at once, saying that 25 years was at least 15 years longer that he should have served.

Korb, who was assistant secretary of defense under Caspar Weinberger at the time of Pollard’s arrest, wrote a letter to Obama calling for Pollard’s release that was released last week.

The letter called Pollard’s sentence “grossly disproportionate” and said it was the result of Weinberger’s “visceral dislike” of Israel, and not because of the offense Pollard had committed.

In addition to Korb, former CIA director James Woolsey and former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dennis DeConcini, as well as a cross-section of other notable Americans, and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations have all recently called for Pollard’s release.

Will Pollard finally be released? One can only hope and pray that the answer is yes.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:57 PM