Obama will not intervene to allow Jonathan Pollard to leave for Israel [View all]

[MADem]

President Obama will not intervene to allow Jonathan Pollard, convicted three decades ago of spying for Israel, to travel there after his scheduled parole from federal prison next week, administration officials said.

Under the terms of his release, Pollard must remain in the United States, under supervision, for five years. His supporters here and in Israel have suggested that Obama could use his executive power to waive that condition and allow Pollard to leave the country, perhaps with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting the United States this week....His attorney, Eliot Lauer, told the Times of Israel last week that Pollard had employment and a place to live waiting for him in New York but that Pollard wanted to join his wife, Esther, in Israel.

....“President Obama has not intervened in the judicial process here in the United States, and that’s been his consistent approach,” Rhodes said. “With respect to the case of Jonathan Pollard, he’s made clear that he wants there to be fair treatment under the law, as there should be with any individual.”

Obama, Rhodes said, “respects how important this issue is to many Israelis.” But the president’s non-intervention approach has not changed, he said.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-will-not-intervene-to-allow-jonathan-pollard-to-leave-for-israel/2015/11/09/38e9c688-872f-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html