F.O.I. Documents: P.M. Barak Involved in Earliest Meetings with U.S. on Pollard

Pollard Attorney Plans To File Request For Documents

JERUSALEM - October 20, 1999

Jonathan Pollard's attorney, Larry Dub, returned to Jerusalem today after meeting with his client at the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, North Carolina, where they discussed newly-obtained Freedom of Information documents.

These documents show that, contrary to the claims of Prime Minister Ehud Barak that he had no personal previous involvement in the Pollard case, he was involved in some of the earliest meetings with the Americans on the case.

Documents show that IDF General Barak, then head of AMAN, met with his American counterpart, the Director of American Military Intelligence regarding Pollard in late November of 1985 - which would be a matter of days after Jonathan Pollard was arrested on November 21, 1985. It appears that further meetings were scheduled to take place in 1986 as well.

Dub is preparing to submit a Request to Produce Documents to the Supreme Court of Israel on behalf of his client tomorrow (10/21/99) which asks for a court order to force Barak to produce the Israeli minutes of the meeting that he had with the Americans regarding Pollard in November of 1985, as well as the minutes of any further meetings on Pollard with the same American official.

The Request provides a history of the concerted efforts that Barak has made to distance himself from Pollard and to scrupulously avoid contact or even the remotest association with him, dating from long before Barak became Prime Minister. The Request states that the petitioner has reason to believe the minutes of these early meetings with the Americans would go a long way to explaining why Barak avoids Pollard so drastically, in a way that no other Prime Minister ever has, and in a way that raises questions.

The full text of the Request to Produce Documents will be posted to the Web on Friday October 22, 1999.

Saturday, October 23, 1999 marks one year since President Clinton promised a "speedy review" of the Pollard case, after publicly reneging on the commitment he made to free Pollard as an integral part of the Wye accords. P.M. Barak's negative position on Pollard and his damaging statements calling the case "an internal American problem", as well as his willingness to free Palestinian security prisoners without getting anything in return - (the prisoners were the price Israel paid for Pollard at Wye) - seems to have removed what ever little incentive the President had to complete his "speedy review."


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