Senior House Member: Jonathan Pollard No Longer Threat To US National Security

A consistent reason given for not releasing Jonathan Pollard has been that even 27 years after his arrest--Pollard had information that would still pose a threat to US security interests.

Representative. Robert Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat, says this is simply no longer true--Jonathan Pollard is no longer a threat to US security and should be released:

A senior House member has asserted that U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard, imprisoned since 1985, was no longer a threat to national security.

Rep. Robert Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat, has urged President Barack Obama to free Pollard, who has served 27 years of a life sentence for relaying classified information to Israel. Andrews, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder that Pollard no longer possesses any classified information of use to a foreign country.

"If Mr. Pollard were released today he would pose no threat to national security and any intelligence that he once possessed is undoubtedly irrelevant 27 years later," Andrews said.

Pollard remains in prison serving a sentence that simply has no precedent, in comparison with both similar cases of spying for an ally and even cases of spying for an enemy. During the last 25 years, there have been Egyptian and Saudi defendants who were charged with relaying U.S. defense secrets--and yet their sentences were as little as two years in prison.

At a time when there have been increasing numbers of high profile members of the US government--such as former CIA director James Woolsey, Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence chairman Dennis DeConcini and former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger--speaking out publicly on behalf of Pollard's release, the time has come to correct what has become a blatant miscarriage of justice.

Hat tip: IMRA

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