CIA: Pollard got life sentence due to ‘Post’ interview
12/17/2012 03:34
Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard received a life sentence because he violated a
plea agreement he had signed, by giving an unauthorized interview to The
Jerusalem Post, according to the newly declassified 1987 CIA damage assessment
of the Pollard case, published Friday by the National Security Archive at George
Washington University.
Judge Aubrey Robinson sentenced Pollard to life in
prison in March 1987 despite a plea agreement in which Pollard agreed to
cooperate with the investigation against him, in return for a promise that he
would not receive such a sentence.
The CIA document surmised that
Robinson delivered the sentence because of the plea bargain violation, along
with his perception of the severity of the espionage offense.
“Pollard’s
willingness to grant an interview to journalist Wolf Blitzer for The Jerusalem
Post without obtaining advance approval of the resulting text from the Justice
Department violated the terms of his plea bargain,” the document
said.