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Jonathan Pollard, convicted of spying for Israel and serving a life sentence, will appear in a court session described by his wife as "bogus."
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08/28
Associated Press/Haaretz |
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08/13
Israel National News |
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| By Ellis Shuman August 28, 2003 |
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Jonathan Pollard, a former civilian American Naval intelligence analyst who was convicted of espionage for Israel and is serving a life sentence, will appear in court next week for the first time in sixteen years. The upcoming court session will not constitute an appeal or evidentiary hearing, but rather allow Pollard's lawyers to present "oral arguments" asking for a re-sentencing. Pollard's wife says the hearing is "bogus" and hides the real problem.
Pollard's scheduled appearance next week in federal court is being described as "unusual" and U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan did not explain why he ordered Pollard be brought from a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, to Washington.
At the court session, Pollard's lawyers will argue two long-pending motions. One motion, pending since August 16, 2001, asks the court to modify a prior order and allow Pollard's security-cleared defense counsel, Eliot Lauer and attorney Jacques Semmelman to read the classified portions of five documents filed with the sentencing judge shortly before Pollard was sentenced to life in prison on March 4, 1987. The Department of Justice has refused to allow Pollard's counsel access to these documents, claiming they have no "need to know" what is in the documents.
The other motion, pending since October 5, 2001, asks the Court to reconsider an earlier order denying Pollard's Motion for Re-sentencing purely on procedural grounds. Pollard's lawyer at the time, Richard Hibey, declined to file a routine notice of appeal after the sentence was given, and also failed to object when prosecutors violated the plea agreement and asked for life, and failed to call for an evidentiary hearing on then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's secret affidavit.
Pollard's lawyers will have 30 minutes to present their case, and ten additional minutes to respond to the government's counter-claims.
"The burden is on defendant Pollard to demonstrate a 'need to know' sufficient to warrant access to the classified materials in this case," prosecutors wrote in a court filing. "Defendant Pollard has offered no compelling reason for breaching the secrecy of the classified materials in this case."
Pollard-supporters are not optimistic, "fearing that the upcoming session is merely an excuse to extend the process even longer than the three years it has already dragged out," Israel National News reported.
"This is not a trial or a hearing," Pollard's wife, Esther, told radio broadcaster Nissim Mishal two weeks ago. "It is what is known in English as 'Oral Arguments.' It is essentially just more talk about whether or not to allow the attorneys to continue Jonathan's cases which have already been sitting on the judges desk for the last 3 years. It is a device that allows the Court to avoid making a decision on those two cases."
Mishal asked Esther Pollard why her husband was being brought to Washington to appear in the court session.
"It is simply a technical procedure," she said. "There will be no testimony and no evidence. Jonathan will not get to testify or even to speak. No decision on his original cases will be made... As long as the public has the mistaken impression that something important is happening in court, they will not be concerned for Jonathan. Meanwhile, a lot more time is being wasted as Jonathan continues to languish in prison without any hope of this court date moving his case forward at all."
When asked what was really troubling her, Esther Pollard replied, "I am deeply troubled that announcing this court date in September destroys any hope that Jonathan had that the Government of Israel might finally actually do something for him, especially now when there is such a great window of opportunity. Here we are making all these enormous gestures [to the Palestinians] at the request of the United States and Jonathan's release was promised to us at Wye by the U.S. All Israel has to do is to collect it. And his release was a promise, not between two leaders, but between two nations. Instead of Israel asking for Jonathan's release, there is all this noise in the media about a bogus hearing in Washington in September, as if that might actually free him, and that lets Israel off the hook again. The government has the perfect excuse to defer all initiative and to once again bury Jonathan alive."
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