Jonathan Pollard won't survive another year of U.S. jail, wife says
Haaretz - November 21, 2011
In statement released by campaign for convicted Israeli spy's freedom 26 years into his sentence, Esther Pollard claims medical complications were preventing her husband from accepting visits, making phone calls.
Jonathan Pollard's medical condition won't enable him to survive through another year of jail, his wife was quoted as saying in a statement on Monday, 26 years into the convicted Israeli spy's prison sentence.
Pollard, who was convicted of espionage for Israel and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1986, has been suffering from many medical complications in his gallbladder and kidneys, undergoing an emergency operation in August of this year.
In a statement released by the campaign for Pollard's release, Esther Pollard expressed fears that her husband could die as a result of his medical complications, saying: "I'm afraid he won't be able to survive another year of this."
"In the last few months it has happened often that he could not garner enough strength to get to the phone and use the few minutes he has to contact the outside world. He has terrible kidney complications that are causing him excruciating pain," Pollard said, adding after "26 years all his systems are feeble and we both know that the next emergency hospitalization or operation are just a matter a time, and that no one is promising us he'll make it through."
The convicted Israeli spy's wife also commented on her husband's inability to accept visitors in prison, saying that in "the past we would arrange a visit for anyone who could possibly do something to advance his release, as soon as we settled things as far as prison protocol goes."
"In the last year, as Jonathan's [medical] condition became worse he was too weak to even sit through a one-hour visit. I feel he's withering away in front of my very eyes," Pollard said.
The statement released by the campaign to release Pollard for the twenty-sixth anniversary of his incarceration, also quoted an unnamed U.S. official who had allegedly opposed Pollard's release in the past, as saying that he felt obligated to act now, adding that as an American it was important to prevent the convicted Israeli spy from dying in jail.