Pentagon official: "Pollard is serving a far more serious sentence than he
deserved"
Ilil Shahar IDF Radio
Last Updated: 10:30, 10/12/2010
http://glz.co.il/newsArticle.aspx?newsid=70221
[IMRA translation]

Exclusive: U.S. Pentagon official, Lawrence J. Korb, call President Obama to
release the prisoner Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel. "The punishment
was so severe due to lack of sympathy for Israel from the former U.S.
Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger," he said. According to Korb, Pollard
received a "disproportionate punishment", noting the average penalty for
this offense is 10 years today

IDF Radio received the letter sent by the former assistant secretary of
Defense Secretary, Dr. Lawrence J. Korb to President Obama two weeks ago
about Jonathan Pollard. Korb wrote that the sentence Pollard was serving was
far more serious than he deserves, in relation to those crimes committed.

"Based on the knowledge that I have first hand, I can confidently say that
the punishment was so severe because of lack of sympathy for Israel by the
U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time, my boss, Caspar Weinberger," the
letter stated.

According to Korb, Weinberg made great efforts to convince the judge to
punish Pollard severely. "Although Pollard pleaded guilty, cooperated with
the government and asked for clemency - he received disproportionate
punishment," wrote Korb. "In the end Weinberg himself did not put the
Pollard story in his biography. Weinberger said that the reason for this is
because the affair had been exaggerated beyond minor importance - that is,
he finally understood and admitted that the story had been blown beyond
proportions. "

Korb emphasized that the average penalty for the offense Pollard committed
is two to four years, and even today when the law changed - the average
sentence is 10 years. "So if he was sentenced today he could not sit 25
years in prison. Justice will be done if the sentence is shortened to what
has already been run to date," Korb's letter concluded.