Jonathan Pollard, the American spy who sold US secrets to Israel, was freed Friday after 30 years in jail as his lawyers went to court to challenge parole conditions that let the state track his every movement.
Israel, which has long deemed his punishment disproportionate and where some see the 61-year-old as a national hero, welcomed his release from a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.
Pollard's lawyers immediately went to court in New York, challenging as unreasonable and unlawful conditions of his five-year probation period, calling it "vindictive and cruel."
Dressed in an open-collar shirt and khaki slacks, Pollard walked out of the New York court house past a throng of waiting journalists before being driven away in a car.
The Texas-born Pollard was granted Israeli citizenship in 1995, and his family says he wants to settle in Israel. But under the terms of his release he cannot leave America for five years.
For now, Pollard has moved to New York with his second wife, whom he married while in jail. His lawyers said he has secured a job in the finance department of an investment firm.
Pollard was a US Navy intelligence analyst when he was caught passing sensitive security documents to Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed his release.
"After three long and difficult decades, Jonathan is at last reunited with his family," Netanyahu said.
The Pollard case has been a major bone of contention between Israel and the United States, with successive US presidents starting from Ronald Reagan refusing demands for his release.
His lawyers asked the US federal court in Manhattan to overturn "invasive GPS monitoring," curfew and travel restrictions and "career-impairing monitoring of his computer use."
Pollard suffers from a condition called weeping edema, which causes chronic swelling and requires him to wear orthopedic stockings, as well as severe diabetes, which make it "dangerous" for him to wear any restraint on his ankle or leg, they said in court papers.
- Stream of intelligence -
Lawyers Jacques Semmelman and Eliot Lauer said Pollard had been a "model prisoner" and that there was no reason to fear he might commit acts of violence or reveal further US intelligence that by now, in any case, would be so outdated as to be meaningless.
But Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the president does "not have any plans to alter the terms of his parole."
Pollard's release comes 30 years after his arrest on November 21, 1985.
A US court jailed Pollard for life in 1987 after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.
Over the years Israeli right-wing activists have sought to turn Pollard into an icon, a fierce defender of Israeli security, even when it meant spying on Israel's closest ally.
In America, however, Pentagon and CIA officials are still angry about the classified defense documents that Pollard leaked.
The release allows Pollard, who became very religious behind bars, to observe the Jewish Sabbath starting at sundown Friday.
While in prison, he married Esther Zeitz, a Canadian Jew who campaigned for his release.
- Pawn in modern politics? -
As a Navy analyst with an advanced security clearance, Pollard had access to top secret information.
He made contact in June 1984 with an Israeli colonel, Aviem Sella, who was studying in New York, and offered to provide him with classified information.
He soon began supplying a stream of intelligence, reportedly thousands of documents.
Pollard is also alleged to have passed classified information to South Africa, and to have given his then wife Anne documents on China for use in her personal business.
Washington accused Pollard of seriously damaging US interests during the Cold War.
He claimed only to have passed information vital to Israel's security that the Americans had withheld, but security experts feared sensitive information might have reached Soviet hands.
He told investigators he was asked to obtain US information on Arab nuclear programs and "Arab exotic weaponry," a since declassified CIA document said.
Israel's October 1985 raid on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's Tunis headquarters that killed around 60 people was planned with information from Pollard, according to CIA documents declassified in 2012.
His work also contributed to the Israeli assassination of the PLO's second-in-command, Khalil al-Wazir, or Abu Jihad, in 1988.
There is speculation that the July announcement of Pollard's release, just days after the West-Iran nuclear deal, was meant as consolation for Israel, which vehemently opposes the accord.
Some, however, argue otherwise.
"The parole after 30 years was expected by many," Michael Brenner, director of the Center for Israel Studies at American University, told AFP. "It may help the strained US-Israeli relations after the Iran deal, but I think this was not the decisive cause for the release."
Jonathan Pollard, the American spy who sold US secrets to Israel, was freed Friday after 30 years in jail as his lawyers went to court to challenge parole conditions that let the state track his every movement.
Israel, which has long deemed his punishment disproportionate and where some see the 61-year-old as a national hero, welcomed his release from a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.
Pollard’s lawyers immediately went to court in New York, challenging as unreasonable and unlawful conditions of his five-year probation period, calling it “vindictive and cruel.”
Dressed in an open-collar shirt and khaki slacks, Pollard walked out of the New York court house past a throng of waiting journalists before being driven away in a car.
The Texas-born Pollard was granted Israeli citizenship in 1995, and his family says he wants to settle in Israel. But under the terms of his release he cannot leave America for five years.
For now, Pollard has moved to New York with his second wife, whom he married while in jail. His lawyers said he has secured a job in the finance department of an investment firm.
Pollard was a US Navy intelligence analyst when he was caught passing sensitive security documents to Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed his release.
“After three long and difficult decades, Jonathan is at last reunited with his family,” Netanyahu said.
The Pollard case has been a major bone of contention between Israel and the United States, with successive US presidents starting from Ronald Reagan refusing demands for his release.
His lawyers asked the US federal court in Manhattan to overturn “invasive GPS monitoring,” curfew and travel restrictions and “career-impairing monitoring of his computer use.”
Pollard suffers from a condition called weeping edema, which causes chronic swelling and requires him to wear orthopedic stockings, as well as severe diabetes, which make it “dangerous” for him to wear any restraint on his ankle or leg, they said in court papers.
– Stream of intelligence –
Lawyers Jacques Semmelman and Eliot Lauer said Pollard had been a “model prisoner” and that there was no reason to fear he might commit acts of violence or reveal further US intelligence that by now, in any case, would be so outdated as to be meaningless.
But Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the president does “not have any plans to alter the terms of his parole.”
Pollard’s release comes 30 years after his arrest on November 21, 1985.
A US court jailed Pollard for life in 1987 after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.
Over the years Israeli right-wing activists have sought to turn Pollard into an icon, a fierce defender of Israeli security, even when it meant spying on Israel’s closest ally.
In America, however, Pentagon and CIA officials are still angry about the classified defense documents that Pollard leaked.
The release allows Pollard, who became very religious behind bars, to observe the Jewish Sabbath starting at sundown Friday.
While in prison, he married Esther Zeitz, a Canadian Jew who campaigned for his release.
– Pawn in modern politics? –
As a Navy analyst with an advanced security clearance, Pollard had access to top secret information.
He made contact in June 1984 with an Israeli colonel, Aviem Sella, who was studying in New York, and offered to provide him with classified information.
He soon began supplying a stream of intelligence, reportedly thousands of documents.
Pollard is also alleged to have passed classified information to South Africa, and to have given his then wife Anne documents on China for use in her personal business.
Washington accused Pollard of seriously damaging US interests during the Cold War.
He claimed only to have passed information vital to Israel’s security that the Americans had withheld, but security experts feared sensitive information might have reached Soviet hands.
He told investigators he was asked to obtain US information on Arab nuclear programs and “Arab exotic weaponry,” a since declassified CIA document said.
Israel’s October 1985 raid on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s Tunis headquarters that killed around 60 people was planned with information from Pollard, according to CIA documents declassified in 2012.
His work also contributed to the Israeli assassination of the PLO’s second-in-command, Khalil al-Wazir, or Abu Jihad, in 1988.
There is speculation that the July announcement of Pollard’s release, just days after the West-Iran nuclear deal, was meant as consolation for Israel, which vehemently opposes the accord.
Some, however, argue otherwise.
“The parole after 30 years was expected by many,” Michael Brenner, director of the Center for Israel Studies at American University, told AFP. “It may help the strained US-Israeli relations after the Iran deal, but I think this was not the decisive cause for the release.”
