Officials
deny report that U.S. preparing to release Israeli spy
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[July 25, 2015]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.
officials on Friday denied a Wall Street Journal report that the Obama
administration was considering early release for Jonathan Pollard, a
former U.S. Navy intelligence officer convicted of spying for Israel.
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The Justice Department said Pollard must serve his full 30-year
sentence. It stressed that he has long been eligible for
consideration for parole in November but insisted that the
administration has no say in how that process unfolds.
One U.S. official rejected the notion that Pollard's release would
have anything to do with trying to smooth tense relations with
Israel over President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, which
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fiercely opposes.
The Journal reported that some U.S. officials are pushing for
Pollard's release in a matter of weeks, while others expect it could
take months, possibly at his parole consideration date in November.
Successive Israeli governments have appealed for Pollard's release,
which would be hugely popular in Israel, but U.S. presidents have
always resisted. Pollard, 60, was convicted in 1987 of spying for
Israel and sentenced to a life term.
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The Justice Department said it "has always and continues to maintain
that Jonathan Pollard should serve his full sentence for the serious
crimes he committed."
“Mr. Pollard’s status will be determined by the United States Parole
Commission according to standard procedures," said Alistair Baskey,
a spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "There is
absolutely zero linkage between Mr. Pollard’s status and foreign
policy considerations.”
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Pollard's supporters say he is being punished too harshly since
Israel is a U.S. ally and much of the classified information he
passed on caused no damage to the United States and was intelligence
that Israel previously had access to.
His supporters also say he should be released because of his poor
health, with his attorney saying he suffers from diabetes and high
blood pressure.
Netanyahu has personally pressed for years to get the United States
to release Pollard, who is currently serving time in a federal
prison in Butner, North Carolina.
The Obama administration considered early release in the spring of
2014 as a sweetener to encourage Israel in an Israeli-Palestinian
peace effort, but the idea caused an uproar in the U.S. intelligence
community and was quickly dropped.
(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Julia Edwards, Eric Beech and Jeff
Mason; Editing by Sandra Maler and Ken Wills)
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