21 January 1999. Thanks to A.

    ++ US Denies Pollard's Attorney His File

    ++ Pollard Pays (opinion article)

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    http://www.jpost.com/News/Article-5.html

    The Jerusalem Post, 22 January 1999, 01:43

    US Denies Pollard's Attorney His File
    By Batsheva Tsur

    JERUSALEM (January 22) - The US Justice Department has turned down a
    request from the lawyer representing Jonathan Pollard to see the file on
    the convicted spy, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

    Writing on behalf of Attorney-General Janet Reno, legal counsel Craig
    Iscoe told Jerusalem lawyer Larry Dub that the Justice Department does
    not give out copies of recommendations it makes to the US president.

    The reference was to Reno's recent appraisal of the Pollard case
    presented to President Bill Clinton for review.

    Dub said yesterday he had requested that Pollard and his attorneys be
    allowed to see the complete file on the case in order to formulate a
    defense and present a submission.

    "The Justice Department has both actively and passively been responsible
    for the miscarriage of justice" in the Pollard case, Dub charged
    yesterday.

    "Actively, by consistently denying Pollard and his attorneys access to
    the documents that would exonerate him of the many false allegations
    that have been levied against him via the media. Passively, by
    tolerating the deliberate libeling of his client through the media, and
    failing to investigate those American officials who deliberately leaked
    sensitive material to the media in violation of the law."

    In a letter to Reno, Dub writes: "As you know, Section 1.5 of the Rules
    Governing Petitions for Executive Clemency, published by the Justice
    Department, clearly vests authority in you to allow Mr. Pollard and his
    attorneys to see the evidence and material in the file in order to serve
    the ends of justice, and enable us to formulate a proper defense and
    submission to your agency.

    "Accordingly, in the interests of due process, I am hereby requesting
    that my client and his attorneys be allowed a full review of the
    complete record in possession of the Justice Department. Only after a
    full review of the complete file - including sentencing documents and
    secret charges - can my client formulate a defense and enter a
    submission."

    Copyright 1999 The Jerusalem Post.

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    http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/htmls/7_3.htm

    Ha'aretz [Tel Aviv], 21 January 1999

    [Excerpt from Akiva Eldar's op-ed column "People and Politics"]

    Pollard Pays

    There are two possible explanations for the behavior of Prime Minister
    Benjamin Netanyahu in the case of Jonathan Pollard.

    Either he is cynically exploiting the suffering of a prisoner for
    political purposes or he doesn't understand what everyone in Washington
    knows: the media circus surrounding Pollard's release gave birth to the
    broadest coalition the United States capital has seen in years.

    The coalition stretches from the White House to the Congress, from the
    Pentagon to the CIA and from the State Department to the FBI. Clinton's
    advisers on the National Security Council have warned him that showing
    leniency toward Pollard would hurt U.S. relations with the international
    intelligence community. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that
    she sees no political advantage in this type of gesture. Perhaps this is
    also a hint that this is no time to do Netanyahu a favor.

    As we've seen, Netanyahu has no qualms about head-on collisions with the
    U.S. president. He proved that in his disagreement with Clinton at Wye
    Plantation over adding Pollard to the Israeli Air Force aircraft
    passenger list. In such cases, Netanyahu tends to call for help from his
    friends in the Republican Party. But this time he was met with a cold
    shoulder. From former House speaker Newt Gingrich to the chair of the
    Senate Intelligence Committee, Bill Shelby, nobody was ready to come out
    of the closet for Pollard. No fewer than 60 senators signed a letter to
    the president demanding he reject the request for the spy's early
    release.

    If Netanyahu held discreet contacts with the White House and secretly
    prepared the ground in Congress, the matter wouldn't have made headlines
    and maybe four retired admirals who ran the Naval Intelligence Agency
    wouldn't have reminded the U.S. media that Pollard offered his wares to
    the highest bidder. The high profile of the fight to secure Pollard's
    release reduced once more the stature of thousands of Jewish government
    employees and military personnel for whom the name Pollard is a synonym
    for the specter of dual loyalty. The discretion exercised by former
    prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres in their
    pardon requests for Pollard is still remembered in Washington.

    It is difficult to say whether a quiet approach would help Pollard, but
    there is no doubt that the noise hasn't gotten him any closer to
    freedom. The word in Washington this week was that Pollard received a
    one-third extension of his sentence for Netanyahu's bad behavior.

    [End excerpt.]

    Copyright 1998 Ha'aretz.

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