Rabin's Murder Kills Talks With Clinton To Free Pollard

November 6, 1995 - Mosheh Reisfeld - Ha'Aretz

One of the innocent bystanders wounded by the death of Yitzhak Rabin is Jonathan Pollard. Pollard's attorney in Israel, Gidi Frishtik, stated that the last request that Yitzhak Rabin had made of President Bill Clinton, in their recent talks in Washington, was to release Jonathan Pollard. The two came to an understanding on all the other matters raised in those talks, and agreed to revisit the issue of Pollard in their next meeting.

Pollard was pinning his hopes on their upcoming meeting, especially since, as is well known, the American parole board, which is supposed to rule on the case in the coming months, will turn Pollard down. Clinton, who will then be in the midst of an American election campaign, will not grant clemency to Pollard in opposition to the parole board. Pollard counted on Rabin to convince Clinton to free him, but the murder extinguished that hope.

Recently, Pollard's attorneys requested to Rabin that the government re-examine its refusal to grant Jonathan Pollard Israeli citizenship.