WASHINGTON -- Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. naval analyst
sentenced to life for relaying military secrets to Israel, is struggling to
keep from being transferred to what he says is a violent prison wing.
Pollard has written to U.S. and Israeli officials, including First Lady
Hillary Clinton, who is running for U.S. Senate in New York. The former
analyst, who was granted Israeli citizenship, said he turned to Ms. Clinton
after Israel had ignored his appeals.
Last week, Ms. Clinton discussed the Pollard case with New York State
Assemblyman Dov Hikind. Hikind, a critic of the First Lady, appears to have
linked an endorsement of Ms. Clinton to her position on freeing Pollard and
supporting Israeli control of Jerusalem.
At this point, Pollard has not been transferred.
Over the weekend, Pollard wrote to Moshe Kochanovsky, the Defense
Ministry official responsible for Pollard's welfare, and accused the
official of failing to act. Kochanovsky was accused of working with U.S.
authorities against Pollard's interest.
"Rather than act on my behalf, you collaborated with the Americans,
believed their lies, and gave me false assurances that the transfer was not
life-threatening," Pollard wrote. "Since the Government of Israel would not
help, my wife and I were forced to fight the prison transfer on our own."
Pollard, who has already served 15 years in jail, said Ms. Clinton and
other public figures appealed to the Bureau of Prisons, to halt his
transfer.
In a previous Aug. 27 letter, Pollard said Israel had failed to protest
his detention in a facility for the criminally insane. This included being
held in a cell three stories underground "in a dungeon cell in solitary
confinement where the extremes of temperature were brutal, and the rats and
mice feasted in the darkness."