Supporters of clemency for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard have mounted a campaign to attract backers on Capitol Hill.
Pollard’s sister, Carol Pollard, held a briefing last week on Capitol Hill, attended by several members of Congress and several dozen congressional staff members, during which she urged support for a commutation of her brother’s life sentence.
Also present in the audience was Capitol Hill expert Thomas Dine, the former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who is working with Pollard’s supporters.
Pollard, a former civilian Navy intelligence analyst, was convicted in 1986 of espionage for Israel and is currently in the eighth year of a life sentence.
His supporters feel his punishment is excessive and have filed a petition asking the administration to review the controversial case and grant him clemency.
The Aug. 3 briefing was organized by four Pollard supporters in the House of Representatives: Reps. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.).
An aide to Schumer said that the congressman had discussed the Pollard case in a recent meeting with Attorney General Janet Reno, and that she had told him the department was taking a look at the issue.
Carol Pollard argued at the briefing that her brother’s sentence was “disproportionate in the extreme to others who spied for allies, or even enemies, of the United States.”
Commuting Jonathan Pollard’s sentence, she said, would close an “unhealed wound” between the United States and Israel.
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