Jonathan Pollard Not Allowed To Attend Father's Funeral

Now Pollard has not been allowed to attend the funeral of each of his parents:

A former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel was not permitted to attend his father's funeral in Indiana on Monday, despite requests from Israeli officials that he be allowed out of prison to pay his respects.


The White House also spurned Israeli appeals to let Jonathan Pollard visit his father, Morris Pollard, before he died Saturday at the age of 95.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke said Pollard remained at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina on Monday. Pollard's lawyer, Eliot Lauer, said via email that Pollard had sought permission from the Bureau of Prisons since June 14 to see his dying father and then asked to attend the funeral in Indiana. Lauer said he faxed a request as late as Sunday evening.

...The only mention of Jonathan Pollard during the hourlong ceremony came when his sister, Carol Pollard-Levy of Hamden, Connecticut, said one of her father's few regrets was "not being able to help his son achieve freedom."

Considering the injustice of the sentence Pollard was given, it is one thing for the US to drag its feet and not even commute Pollard's sentence in view of the many who have spoken out both about the injustice of the sentence and that the time has come for him to be released.

But to not even allow Jonathan Pollard to attend his father's funeral is worse than absurd.

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