JERUSALEM (JTA) — Attorneys for Jonathan Pollard filed a new petition for clemency, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The petition, filed last Friday, asks President Obama to commute Pollard’s life sentence to his time served, which is 25 years. It does not ask for a pardon. Pollard was a civilian U.S. Navy analyst who was convicted of spying for Israel.
Late last week, former Israeli lawmaker and intelligence officer Rafi Eitan asserted that the United States violated a verbal agreement with Israel to release Pollard after 10 years, and said he remains jailed in part on secret charges that were later discovered to have been perpetrated by Russian mole Aldrich Ames. Ames was arrested in 1994.
The request comes as four U.S. Congress members — Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Bill Pascrell (D- N.J.), Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) and Anthony Weiner (D- N.Y.) — prepare to send a letter that has been circulating in Congress to Obama seeking clemency for Pollard.
The effort is backed by a number of Orthodox groups, including the National Council of Young Israel, the Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel, as well as by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The letter does not question Pollard’s guilt or sentencing, but says that "There has been a great disparity from the standpoint of justice between the amount of time Mr. Pollard has served and the time that has been served — or not served at all — by many others who were found guilty of similar activity on behalf of nations adversarial to us, unlike Israel."
Reports last month, citing unnamed sources, suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might offer to extend the West Bank construction freeze in exchange for Pollard’s release.
