After 30 Years in Prison, Convicted Spy Jonathan Pollard is Free

“After decades of imprisonment under hard circumstances, Jonathan is now free to walk around, breathe the air of freedom and welcome the Sabbath with his family as a free Jew”, Ariel wrote on Facebook.

The prosecutor who handled the case, former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, said it is legitimate for the government to be concerned that Pollard might still have secrets to tell. “As someone who raised Jonathan’s case for years with successive American presidents, I had long hoped this day would come”, he said. “It’s unbelievable. It’s an awesome moment”.

The federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Pollard was no longer in custody but provided no other details. But the transition to the predominantly Christian community wasn’t easy on the young Pollard. “I never … envisioned being divorced today”. He was a US Navy intelligence analyst at the time.

He left South Bend for college at Stanford University, and eventually became an intelligence research specialist at the Naval Ocean Surveillance Information Center in 1979.

However, over the course of his career, he also began to harbor resentment against his colleagues, who he felt harbored anti-Israeli sentiments. “He brought it to meetings that they had in an apartment [near the Israeli embassy]”.

He was arrested on November 21, 1985, after trying to gain asylum at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

In 1985, he was arrested and later convicted of giving thousands of classified documents to Israel.

The lawyers said Pollard had been a “model prisoner” and that there was no reason to fear he might commit acts of violence or reveal further U.S. intelligence that by now, in any case, would be so outdated as to be meaningless. The pair were separated shortly afterwards. But it granted him citizenship in 1995, and in 1997 acknowledged he had been its agent.

Israel initially denied that Pollard was working for it, saying he had been working with “rogue” officials.

Opponents argue Pollard is the only American-born spy to pass such a volume of documents to another country, and that he would have faced the death penalty had it not been illegal at the federal level at the time. “Not just to see Jonathan; I came here to see, talk and meet with Jonathan”.

“We have decided that this is the best way to for him to leave jail, make sure he is safe and happy”, added Lahav.

‘No one in his wildest dreams ever thought the abandonment would go on for thirty years’. “We will have an opportunity to speak alone, without cameras”, she said.

In a 1998 interview with the Associated Press, Pollard said his guilty plea was coerced and expressed regret.

The Parole Commission may end his parole at any time, but is not obliged to reconsider its terms for two years. That does not work’. In a separate section, the lawyers say that “GPS monitoring does not require a monitor attached to the body” and claim that because of his diabetes, “any restraint place on his ankle or leg” would be risky. The Justice Department agreed not to oppose parole at a July hearing. USA officials condemned him as a traitor.

Now 61, Pollard has said he wants to emigrate to Israel, where his second wife lives and where he can expect to receive substantial Israeli government back pay. Pollard is expected to settle in the NY area and is forbidden from traveling outside the country, including to Israel, without permission.

Following his pre-dawn release from the prison in Butner, N.C., he traveled to NY City, where he checked in with his parole officer. “I would anticipate they’re going to keep a tight reign on him”, he said.

Pollard’s lawyers are asking the court to vacate those conditions of his parole.

Mr Netanyahu has urged Israelis to stay low key about Pollard’s release because of concerns that too warm a celebration might damage efforts to persuade the United States government to let him leave for Israel sooner. “The president has no plans to alter the forms of his parole”.