Quote:
US spy threatens to squeal
14/04/2006 11:51 - (SA)
Jerusalem - A former US defence department official jailed for spying for Israel, is threatening to shop secrets about his handler should he become a government minister, a newspaper reported Friday.
In a letter written through his Israeli lawyer to Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jonathan Pollard complained about his longtime handler Rafi Eitan refusing to hand over an important document requested by US officials.
As long as he keeps the document, Pollard charged that he would remain in jail in the US where he is serving a life sentence, according to a copy of the letter seen by the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
Eitan, a former agent of Israel's Mossad overseas intelligence agency, in the 1980s headed the anti-terrorist branch of the service that handled Pollard.
Pollard, an American Jew and former analyst for the navy, gave thousands of secret documents about US spy activities in the Arab world to Israel between May 1984 and his arrest in November 1985.
Just before his arrest, Pollard had tried to seek refuge at the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Today, the 79-year-old Eitan leads the Pensioners' Party which won seven seats in Israel's March 28 parliamentary election and is set to become a partner in Olmert's incoming coalition government.
Pollard has also threatened to appeal to Israel's Supreme Court to prevent Eitan from being nominated a minister under Olmert, calling such an appointment an "infamy and disgrace" for the Jewish state, according to the leaked letter.
Eitan still faces an outstanding Federal Bureau of Investigation arrest warrant for his role as Pollard's handler, making him potentially the first member of an Israeli government sought by US justice.
Last July, a US appeals court refused to reduce the life sentence against Pollard, whose conviction and imprisonment sparked a crisis in relations between Washington and its key Middle East ally.
Successive Israeli governments have asked for Pollard to be freed. He was granted Israeli nationality while in prison in 1998.
US security services say his release would be an intelligence threat.
source
More :
Bush said to be open to release of Israeli spy
Americans coughed up $5 trillion dollars (in 1950s and 1960s dollars) to build and maintain a nuclear deterrent. Jonathan Pollard stole key information about the nuclear deterrent and gave it to Israel. Israel turned around and traded that information to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas for Russian Jews to move to Israel. Some friend, right?
It is impossible to calculate the damage Pollard caused the US with his spying.
Releasing Pollard sends the wrong message. It tells Israel that they can send their spies over here to the US to do what they do, and even if they get caught, they'll eventually be let go. That is a terrible message to send as we embark on yet another spy trial involving AIPAC, which raises not only the specter of Mossad involvement in the lies that tricked this nation into war with Iraq, but possibly with 9-11 itself.
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." -- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the
Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.
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