Convicted U.S. spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard released from prison

The decades-long punishment has been deemed disproportionate by the Jewish state, where Pollard is seen by a few as a national hero.

The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement the people of his nation “welcome the release” and that he, personally, “had long hoped this day would come”.

“After all this time, we want him to get out without any difficulties of any comments in the press”, said Kenneth Lasson, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who supported Pollard’s bid to have his sentence shortened.

But one condition of his parole is that he can not leave the United States for five years.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the crime merited a life sentence, given the amount of damage that Mr. Pollard did to the United States government”, said Joseph diGenova, who prosecuted the case as USA attorney in Washington, D.C. “I would have been perfectly pleased if he had spent the rest of his life in jail”.

He was released early Friday from a federal prison in North Carolina and quickly headed to NY, where he was set up for electronic monitoring as required under his parole, according to spokesmen for the Federal Bureau of Prisons and US Marshals Service.

In the eyes of many Israelis and American Jews at the time, Pollard wanted to help a US ally by providing Israel with intelligence information he believed the country should have. Now, after serving 30 years-the mandatory minimum-he’s being let go and is supposed to serve five years of parole in the US.

Israel initially denied Pollard had spied for them, insisting he had worked with “rogue” officials. In America, however, Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency officials are still angry about the classified defence documents that Pollard leaked.

As the Post reported exclusively a year ago, an apartment had been rented for Pollard in the NY area and employment had been obtained for him as an analyst at an investment firm.

“Throughout the years, our pain was Pollard’s pain… we felt the responsibility and obligation to secure his release”, the president added. It was his imprisonment that was a cause célèbre, and now that it’s over, so too may be Pollard’s status – in Israel and in the US. The White House has said these conditions are not likely to change under President Obama.

The release allows Pollard, who became very religious behind bars, to observe the Jewish Sabbath which begins at sundown on Friday.

Those working on Pollard’s behalf contest the parole arrangement, pointing out that there is nearly zero risk the former spy will pass on additional classified information. Still, it’s a victory for those who’ve been lobbying and praying for him.

They specifically argued against a requirement for “GPS monitoring of his person” and monitoring of his computer use at home and work, which they called “career-impairing”.

“The fact of the matter is, we have deferred to the Department of Justice and the process of justice with respect to the Jonathan Pollard issue”.

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. The secrets to which he was formerly privy are now all outdated.

Prosecutors told the U.S. judge that presided over Pollard’s case that the Israeli spy admitted to selling Israel “a volume of classified documents ten feet by six feet by six feet” if gathered together, according to a history of the Pollard case in Every Spy a Prince by journalists Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman.