Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard returned from a federal hospital back to his
prison cell in Butner, North Carolina, on Sunday following 10 days of emergency
treatment for a combination of severe ailments.
Pollard was brought to
the hospital on the eve of the Passover holiday after he collapsed and required
urgent medical care. He was able to make a two-minute phone call Sunday to
update his wife, Esther, that he had returned to prison.
Esther Pollard
reported that he sounded weak and frail and that it seemed hard for him to
speak. She told him that President Shimon Peres had made a personal, official,
written appeal to US President Barack Obama for his release.
“I told
Jonathan that President Peres had said ‘this time we must not fail,’” she
said.
Jonathan Pollard asked his wife to thank Peres and to urge him not
to back down. She responded that she was convinced that “if President Peres will
bring the full weight of his reputation to bear, he will not fail and your life
will be spared.”
When Jonathan Pollard asked whether Obama had responded
to Peres’s appeal, she replied “not yet,” and then the phone went dead, because
the two minutes he had been granted had run out.
Esther Pollard expressed
great concern about her husband’s return to prison in his current
condition.
“He is not receiving muchneeded follow-up medical care,” she
said. “It is only a matter of time until the next medical crisis occurs. I fear
for his life if he remains in prison.