Text of Legal Demand That Barak Reveal Involvement

October 21, 1999

The document below was filed in Israel Supreme Court today. It is the text of a legal demand that Prime Minister Barak produce specific documents in order to clarify his involvement in the Pollard affair, going as far back as the time that Jonathan Pollard was arrested on November 21, 1985.

The demand was filed by Jonathan Pollard's attorney, Larry Dub, who has just returned to Israel after meeting with his client in Butner, North Carolina. Esther Pollard, wife of Jonathan Pollard, accompanied Dub to the Supreme Court today.

While in court, a status check was made regarding Jonathan Pollard's recently submitted Request for an Emergency Hearing of his Petition No. 6029/99. It is anticipated that a date will be set shortly.

These are the Details of the Petitioner's Request:

1. As a result of new documents that have just been obtained from the US Government through the Freedom of Information Act, the petitioner has learned that late in November 1985 the respondent, who was then the Head of AMAN, IDF General Ehud Barak, met with his American counterpart in the American Defense Intelligence Agency, regarding the petitioner's case.

2. Since the petitioner had been arrested on November 21, 1985 - only days before the above meeting took place - it appears that this meeting would have been the first official meeting on the petitioner's case between representatives of the two countries.

3. The petitioner maintains that most of the tasking orders that he received from the State of Israel originated in AMAN (a branch of Israeli intelligence) and were relayed to the petitioner via LAKAM, (the branch of Intelligence that ran him.) [The release of the petitioner's file from the Ministry of Defense will confirm this fact.]

4. In accord with point 3 above, as head of AMAN at that time, the respondent would have been fully aware of the petitioner's actions and of the involvement of officials in the Ministry of Defense, and other officials at the highest levels of the government.

5. According to the documents cited above, at that early date, the Americans still did not have a clear picture of exactly who in Israel was involved in running the petitioner in the US, and to what extent the Government of Israel was involved in the operation. Therefore it is reasonable to presume that this is the kind of information that the Americans expected the respondent to provide at this meeting.

6. The initial contacts cited above between the two countries set official Israeli government policy concerning the petitioner - a policy that was rooted in the dissemination of false information, such as the claim that the petitioner did not work for the State of Israel, that he was a mercenary, and that the operation itself was a rogue operation, not recognized or authorized by the State of Israel.

7. After a short while, and in spite of the untruthful position taken by the State of Israel, the Americans discovered the truth about the extent of the involvement of the Ministry of Defense and the highest levels of the Israeli Government in the espionage operation in the US. Israel's attempt to deceive the Americans enraged them and a decision was made to strike back at Israel, through her agent, the petitioner.

8. The Americans understood that Israel had abandoned her agent and that his situation could be exploited by US officials to serve unholy political purposes. For that reason, certain American officials began to spread misinformation about the petitioner in the media, falsely accusing him and slandering him, and thereby doing irreparable harm to his case which continues up to this very day.

9. Additionally, as a result of the damage done by the initial contacts between the two countries cited above, and as a result of the State of Israel's non-credible position on the affair which angered the Americans, the petitioner received a grossly disproportionate and unprecedented life sentence.

10. As a consequence of the desperate situation that the petitioner found himself in as a result of points 6 to 9 above, the petitioner was left with no choice but to repeatedly turn to this honorable court for relief, to compel the Government of Israel to officially recognize him as an Israeli agent.

11. The documents cited above reveal that there was at least one meeting between the respondent and his counterpart in the American Defense Intelligence Agency regarding the petitioner which took place at the end of November 1985 and it appears that other meetings between these two officials were scheduled to take place in 1986.

12. The petitioner has reason to believe that the minutes of the above meetings would readily shed light on the respondent's long-held position of complete avoidance of and indifference to the petitioner, which appears to have begun right from the inception of this case.

13. The petitioner is aware that in 1995, when the respondent was Minister of the Interior and the State had decided to grant the petitioner Israeli citizenship, the respondent did everything he could to avoid affixing his signature to the petitioner's citizenship papers.

    The respondent at that time went so far as to suggest that the Knesset ought to enact a special Act of Parliament to grant the petitioner citizenship, in order to spare the respondent from signing the papers himself. His suggestion was rejected. As is well known, upon the orders of the late Prime Minister Rabin, the respondent had no choice in the end but to sign the petitioner's papers.

14. The respondent's avoidance of the petitioner was apparent even before the respondent was elected Prime Minister, and even when the respondent was Leader of the Opposition. His behavior towards the petitioner stands in marked contrast to that of all previous Leaders of the Opposition, and even that of the current Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Arik Sharon, who recently met with the wife of the petitioner and his attorney and agreed to assist the petitioner without hesitation.

15. Additionally, according to both the public and private statements recently made by former Cabinet Secretary Dani Naveh, who headed the Pollard team in the previous government, he repeatedly approached the respondent to request his support and participation in joint initiatives to secure the release of the petitioner and was routinely rebuffed. Naveh reported [in his recently published book and in an interview in Yediot Achronot (09/24/99)] that the respondent refused to participate in even the most innocuous gestures, and would not even sign a joint letter to the president of the United States on behalf of the petitioner.

16. All of the former Prime Ministers of Israel since the time that the petitioner was arrested have met with the petitioner's wife, and/or his legal representatives. Only the respondent has consistently refused to have any contact with the petitioner or his representatives.

    Sources close to the respondent have repeatedly advised the respondent to meet with the wife of the petitioner, even if only for public relations purposes. Even though the respondent was aware that former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had met with the petitioner's wife numerous times, before, during and after his time in office, the respondent still refused to meet with her.

    The behavior and attitude of the respondent towards the petitioner stands in marked contrast to that of all of the former Prime Ministers. They understood the importance of the petitioner's case and all of them have met with the petitioner's wife, and/or his legal representatives.

17. For the above reasons the petitioner requests that the honored court immediately require the respondent to produce the Israeli minutes of the above meeting which took place in late November or 1985, and the minutes of any and all additional meetings that occurred between the respondent and the above American official regarding the petitioner.

18. Be advised that the petitioner has also filed a new Freedom of Information Request in the United States to obtain the American minutes of these meetings, which he is entitled to by law .

19. In the interests of law and justice, the petitioner's request should be granted.