Demand That Barak Reveal Involvement in Pollard Affair
October 20, 1999 - Ma'ariv - Ben Caspit
[Translated from Hebrew]
Documents newly-obtained in the USA show that the senior Israeli official who met with American Intelligence officials right after the arrest of Jonathan Pollard in 1985 was none other than the Prime Minister himself, then head of AMAN, IDF General Ehud Barak.
According to the documents which reached Ma'ariv, Ehud Barak was the senior official in the team that traveled to Washington at the end of November 1985 that met with, amongst others, the director of American Military Intelligence.
One of the documents recently obtained by a Pollard source in Washington, reads: "The DR will meet with General Barak (Israel Defense Forces) next week and needs to be briefed re: Pollard."
Attorney Larry Dub, who is Pollard's lawyer, met with Pollard in prison in North Carolina this week and is scheduled to return to Israel today. Dub is preparing to file a legal demand in Supreme court tomorrow, a "Request To Produce Documents".
Pollard's Request will demand the minutes of this meeting between Barak and his American counterpart, as well as the minutes of any further meetings between the two officials regarding Pollard.
Sources close to Pollard said this week that the fact that Barak was involved in the initial contacts with the Americans, which took place right after Pollard was arrested on November 21, 1985 in Washington, explain a lot about "why Barak has, for years, consistently avoided any contact with Pollard, and completely ducked any responsibility towards him."
The Prime Minister Was Aware
In the Request To Produce Documents, Pollard claims that while he himself worked for LAKAM, a great many of his tasking orders originated in AMAN, Israel's Military Intelligence branch, which was headed at the time by Ehud Barak. In other words, even if only indirectly, the current Prime Minister of Israel had a hand in running Pollard, and was aware of his activities and actions all along.The response from the office of Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak which was relayed yesterday was: "Ehud Barak was never the head of a team that handled the Jonathan Pollard case, and he never dealt with this issue directly during his army service."
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