Pollard's Lawyers: Declassified Document shows false charges
Pollard's lawyers slam 'government lies' against him claiming he damaged US
national security.
By Hillel Fendel - Arut7 News - February 24, 2015
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/191778#.VOyQxSyo5ad

Key portions of a critical classified document on which the US government
has cited as justification for keeping Jonathan Pollard in jail have been
declassified – and his lawyers say the government has been "dishonest" in
"hiding behind the mask of 'classified information' to materially
mischaracterize the nature and extent of the harm caused by Mr. Pollard."

Lawyers Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, who have represented Pollard for
15 years pro-bono, say the newly disclosed material shows that any harm
possibly caused by Pollard was only "in the form of short-term disruption in
foreign relations between the United States and certain Arab countries."

"That is not at all the same thing as harm to U.S. national security," they
write in a World Net Daily op-ed, "and it was dishonest for the government
to pretend that it is."

The government position for 30 years has been that Pollard must remain in
prison because a secret note from then-Secretary of State Caspar Weinberger
stated that Pollard caused greater harm to U.S. national security than had
ever occurred previously.

"The government has been able to present this harsh characterization of the
Weinberger declaration without fear of contradiction," Semmelman and Lauer
write, because "no one representing Mr. Pollard [was ever] allowed to see
the Weinberger declaration since the day Mr. Pollard was sentenced" – until
now.

Pollard was arrested in 1985 after imparting classified information to
Israel – a U.S. ally that in any event was supposed to be shown the
information. He was sentenced to life in prison, largely on the basis of the
Weinberger memo. The average sentence for similar crimes is 2-4 years.

About 20% of the memo is still classified, although the headings of the
secret sections have been declassified.

The lawyers state that the U.S. government's "deception had its most blatant
and prejudicial impact at Mr. Pollard's parole hearing held in July 2014,
during which the government invoked the Weinberger declaration and - without
showing it to the parole commission - urged the commission to accept its
representation that the document substantiated more harm to the national
security of the United States than had ever occurred previously."

"In its decision denying parole, the commission took the government at its
word and essentially parroted the government's characterization of the
Weinberger declaration when it wrote that Mr. Pollard had caused 'the
greatest compromise of U.S. security to that date,'" noted the lawyers.

"That is an outright falsehood," the lawyers write, "and the recent
revelations prove it... [It] is now revealed that Mr. Pollard provided
Israel with information concerning the 'political-economic affairs of Middle
Eastern nations,' various 'Middle Eastern orders of battle,' and the
'technology of Soviet weapons and radar systems' used by various Arab
governments."

"The potential consequence [thereof] is described by Mr. Weinberger as 'a
high probability of harm to the foreign relations of the U.S. with friendly
Arab nations'" – and nothing more than that.

The op-ed details the type of information Pollard gave Israel, and the
modest and temporary damage it caused to U.S. relations with some
countries – but not to U.S. security.

"The government's unconscionable deception has deprived Mr. Pollard of his
freedom for too many years," conclude Lauer and Semmelman. "The document
brandished by the government to implement its scheme, hidden from scrutiny
until now, has finally been exposed for what it is: a description of a
brief, long-forgotten blip in foreign relations, not a frightening
exposition of unprecedented harm to U.S. national security. "

"After nearly three decades, in light of the government's perfidy, the only
conceivable way to provide a belated measure of justice is to end Mr.
Pollard's incarceration immediately. President (Barack) Obama has the solemn
duty to uphold the law of the land by finally putting a stop to this ongoing
travesty," they concluded.

JUSTICE FOR JONATHAN POLLARD
Website: http://www.JonathanPollard.org
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