Former U.S. deputy defense secretary: Jonathan Pollard must be freed now
Lawrence Korb tells Army Radio Pollard's punishment was too severe for his crimes, no other person with similar charges received such severe sentence.
Haaretz Service - October 31, 2010
The United States must free Jonathan Pollard immediately, the former American deputy defense secretary at the time of Pollard's arrest told Army Radio on Sunday.
Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst, was sentenced to
life in prison
in 1987 on charges of spying on the U.S. for Israel.Lawrence Korb said that Pollard should be freed since his punishment was too severe relative to the felonies he committed.
The United States must free Jonathan Pollard immediately, the former American deputy defense secretary at the time of Pollard's arrest told Army Radio on Sunday.
Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst, was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 on charges of spying on the U.S. for Israel.
Lawrence Korb said that Pollard should be freed since his punishment was too severe relative to the felonies he committed.
Korb pointed out that Pollard has been sitting in prison longer than any other person who has been charged with spying for a friendly country on the U.S.
The reason for Pollard's severe punishment, Korb explained in a piece written for the Los Angeles Times, was due to a letter that the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time gave to the court directly before Pollard's sentencing.
In the letter, Secretary of Defense Caspar Willard Weinberger detailed the damage that Pollard caused to the national security of the U.S., including an apparent connection with the exposure and subsequent killing of 11 American agents in the former USSR. According to Korb, the letter demanded that Pollard be severely punished. In Korb's article, he says the thinking that any of Pollard's information had reached the USSR has been debunked.
[J4JP clarification:
The secret charges accusing Pollard of being responsible for the exposure of 11 American agents and their subsequent deaths were NOT in the Weinberger memo to the sentencing judge. There was absolutely no evidence to support such accusations, so these charges were never made in writing! They were made secretly and whispered in the ears of the sentencing judge to induce him to ignore the plea deal and sentence Pollard to life. To reiterate: Jonathan Pollard was never formally, accused indicted or convicted of harming American agents. If he had been, he would have been able to challenge these accusations in a court of law. It was only after Aldrich Ames was arrested in 1994 that Pollard learned that he had secretly been blamed all along for the crimes committed by Ames, and also for the crimes of others like Rick Hansen and Ronald Pelton. Even after Ames and the others were caughtt, the US made no move to free Pollard or to clear him of these secret charges.]
Another reason that Korb cited in his article was the refusal on the side of the Israeli government to acknowledge that Pollard was indeed one of their agents.
Last month, several U.S. congressmen signed a petition calling on President Obama to pardon Jonathan Pollard in order to advance the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
A statement released by Democratic Representative Barney Frank "notes the positive impact that a grant of clemency would have in Israel, as a strong indication of the goodwill of our nation towards Israel and the Israeli people."
The petition in support of Pollard's release will circulate until mid-October, when it will be sent to the U.S. president, the statement released by Frank's office said.