{"id":31003,"date":"2011-03-10T11:29:28","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T09:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=31003"},"modified":"2014-01-06T01:11:29","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T23:11:29","slug":"henry-kissinger-asks-obama-to-release-convicted-spy-for-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/03\/10\/henry-kissinger-asks-obama-to-release-convicted-spy-for-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Kissinger asks Obama to release convicted spy for Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger asks Obama to release convicted spy for Israel<\/h3>\n

By The Associated Press (CP)<\/p>\n

JERUSALEM \u2014 Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is urging President Barack Obama to release an American convicted of spying for Israel 24 years ago.<\/p>\n

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Kissinger wrote to Obama, “I believe justice would be served by commuting” Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence.<\/p>\n

Pollard, now 56 years old, was a civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy. He was convicted in 1987 of passing classified information to Israel.<\/p>\n

Kissinger’s March 3 letter joins other recent calls for Pollard’s release from former high-ranking American officials, including former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and former Secretary of State George Shultz.<\/p>\n

In January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also called on the U.S. to release Pollard.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kissinger: Release Israeli spy Pollard<\/h2>\n
By Jeff Stein<\/div>\n
\n

Saying he found the arguments of other top former U.S. national security officials \u201ccompelling,\u201d former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Monday called for President Obama to commute the remainder of Israeli spy\u00a0Jonathan Pollard\u2019s life sentence.<\/p>\n

“At first I felt I did not have enough information to render a reasoned and just opinion,\u201d Kissinger said in his Mar. 3 letter, released today by a public relations firm that has been lobbying for the release of Pollard<\/strong>, sentenced to life in prison for espionage in 1987.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut having talked with [former Secretary of State] George Shultz and read the statements of former CIA Director [R. James] Woolsey, former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman [Dennis] DeConcini, former Defense Secretary [Caspar] Weinberger, former Attorney General [Michael] Mukasey and others whose judgments and first-hand knowledge I respect, I find their unanimous support for clemency compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shultz was secretary at the time of Pollard\u2019s sentencing.<\/p>\n

“I believe justice would be served by commuting the remainder of Pollard’s sentence of life imprisonment,” Kissinger wrote.<\/p>\n

The White House declined to comment on the Kissinger letter, referring to a statement by then spokesman Robert Gibbs on Jan. 15 in response to a question about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s public petition for Pollard’s release.<\/p>\n

“Look, I think the — obviously the State Department answered this a little bit yesterday in saying that they received the request; they\u2019ll take a look at it,” Gibbs said. “I think it is important to underscore that Mr. Pollard was convicted of some of the most serious crimes that anybody can be charged with.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>Backed by major Jewish leaders, the campaign to free Pollard has been mobilized by\u00a0David Nyer, a 25-year-old social worker in a New York health clinic.<\/p>\n

Beginning last summer, Nyer has bagged a number of big names in his effort, including former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time of Jonathan Pollard’s sentencing; Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration; former Clinton White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum and former Deputy Attorney General and Harvard Law Professor Philip Heymann.<\/p>\n

Apart from Woolsey,\u00a0most other intelligence officials have been adamantly opposed to the release of Pollard, a Navy intelligence analyst who provided thousands of highly classified documents to his Israeli handlers. Former CIA Director George Tenet reportedly threatened to quit when the Clinton administration considered it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

voices.washingtonpost.com\/spy-talk, March 7, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger asks Obama to release convicted spy for Israel By The Associated Press (CP) JERUSALEM \u2014 Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is urging President Barack Obama to release an American convicted of spying for Israel 24 years ago. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Kissinger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":31005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,34,922],"tags":[1262,3215,5061,2219,5060,5062],"class_list":["post-31003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-usa","category-world","tag-henry-kissinger","tag-jonathan-pollard","tag-kissinger","tag-mordechai-vanunu","tag-pollard","tag-vanunu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}