Israeli spy Pollard released after 30 years in USA jail

Jonathan Pollard, a former US intelligence research specialist convicted of spying for Israel, has been released from a USA prison after 30 years. But complaints continued from his supporters that he has been treated unfairly.

“After witnessing firsthand the effects of his long incarceration during a visit to the Butner Federal Correction Complex in North Carolina two years ago, I am truly grateful for his release”, said Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly.

Parole Commission restrictions requiring Pollard to wear a Global Positioning System monitoring ankle bracelet, limiting his travel and monitoring his computer use are “unduly restrictive, unnecessary and unlawful”, said his lawyer, Eliot Lauer.

Netanyahu, who has long pressed for Pollard’s release, said on Friday (local time) that “after three long and hard decades Jonathan is at last reunited with his family”. But according to Israeli newspapers, Netanyahu ordered his Cabinet ministers not to discuss the subject because of its sensitivity with the Obama administration.

He was arrested near Israeli embassy in Washington in 1985 after trying to obtain asylum in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed his release.

But prosecutors and USA intelligence analysts said that he did it for cash, and that spies for the U.S.in the Soviet Union were discovered and probably killed because of Pollard’s actions.

The only American ever sentenced to life in prison for spying for an ally, Pollard was freed on parole to an uncertain future.

The White House has said that it has no intention of altering the conditions of Pollard’s parole, and even friends and supporters say they don’t know exactly what’s next for him.

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”. He pleaded guilty in 1986 to conspiracy to commit espionage and was given a life sentence a year later.

In America, however, Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency 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. The Israelis deemed him a soldier, to a few a hero.

Washington later accused Pollard of causing considerable harm to United States interests during the Cold War, although the full scope of his take has never been publicly disclosed.

He claimed only to have passed information vital to Israel’s security that had been withheld by the Americans.

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 and Iran struck a nuclear deal, was meant as a conciliatory gesture towards Israel, which vehemently opposes the accord. 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.