Pollard to Obama: Release me for Passover
YNet News - April 22, 2011
In first ever letter to US president, imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard appeals to Obama: 'With principled support of senior American officials, I implore you to act to commute more than 25 years that I have already served in prison to time served'. So far, no response from White House
Israeli spy, Jonathan Pollard who has been imprisoned in the US for over 25 years, has for the first time, sent a letter to US President Barack Obama pleading with him to commute his sentence to time served, ahead of the Passover holiday, the Jerusalem Post reported Friday.
According to the report, the letter was handed to Obama by President Shimon Peres in their meeting in Washington earlier this month.
Obama has yet to respond to the letter.
"I hope that my own personal appeal may touch your heart and elicit a compassionate, humanitarian response to my heartfelt request to be sent home to Israel for Passover, the holiday of freedom," Pollard wrote.
"My release in time to celebrate Passover at home in Israel with my beloved wife would be a welcome gesture of friendship to the Israeli people, an act of solidarity with a staunch and long-time ally of the United States, and a deeply compassionate and humane gift of life to my wife and me."
According to the Jerusalem Post, the convicted spy once again expressed remorse for his crimes and noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also apologized on behalf of Israel.
"After serving more than a quarter century in some of the harshest prisons in the American penal system, I have had a great deal of time to think and to regret," Pollard wrote and added arguments raised by former senior government officials and recently, many politicians that the punishment he received was disproportionate to the crime.
Delayed honeymoon
The spy went on to mention "My devoted wife, Esther, whom I met and befriended as a teenager, has been faithfully doing everything she can to help me and to bring about my freedom," he wrote. "When she married me in prison years ago, she never imagined that after more than two decades the honeymoon she dreamed of would still be delayed."
Pollard signed his letter and concluded that "in light of the above compelling health and family reasons, and with the principled support of so many senior American officials, I implore you to act expeditiously to commute the more than 25 years that I have already served in prison to time served."