JPost Top Five Stories of 2015 - Excerpt #5: Pollard's Release

Steve Linde, Ediitor - The Jerusalem Post - December 31, 2015


Excerpt: #5 - Pollard's Release

Jonathan Pollard, who spent an unprecedented 30 years of a 45-year-life sentence for spying for an ally - Israel - while working as a US Navy intelligence analyst, was freed from prison on the night of November 20. Because he was released on parole, and not pardoned, Pollard still has the balance of his life sentence - 15 years - hanging like the Sword of Damocles over his head. Any violation of his parole conditions will send him back to prison.

For three decades, the case has been a source of tension in the otherwise close relationship between the US and Israel. When he was finally freed at the age of 61, Pollard was welcomed by his wife, Esther, with whom he is now living in New York. There, Pollard is battling against Draconian parole conditions in court and fighting to move to Israel. His parole conditions prevent him from being gainfully employed, observing his religious beliefs and reintegrating into normative society.

His attorneys, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, say there is no justification for these conditions that are, in their words, "onerous, punitive, vindictive, cruel and unlawful."

When Netanyahu last met with Obama in Washington, he requested the return of Pollard, an Israeli agent, and gave Washington guarantees for his supervision.

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