Jonathan Pollard returns to prison from hospital

Israeli agent's medical condition stable; wife calls on Peres to appeal to Obama for humane gesture to free her husband.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Jonathan and Esther Pollard 370 (photo credit: Courtesy of Justice4JP)
Jonathan and Esther Pollard 370
(photo credit: Courtesy of Justice4JP)
Convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard returned to US federal prison over the weekend after a week in the hospital, sources close to Pollard said Sunday.
Pollard underwent a battery of tests and medical consultations, including an MRI brain scan, during his hospitalization.
Test results were not yet known and it was not clear when they will be provided.
Pollard’s condition was stable enough for him to be returned to the Butner Federal Correction Institute to be monitored by the prison clinic pending test results.
Pollard’s wife, Esther, expressed “bitter disappointment” at the “lack of any meaningful initiative on the part of Israel to secure Jonathan’s release, especially at this time.” She issued an appeal to President Shimon Peres to call US President Barack Obama and plead for him to commute her husband’s life sentence to the more than 27 years he has already served.
“From the bottom of my heart, I implore you, President Peres, both as the recipient of the American medal of freedom and as the former prime minister who bears a personal responsibility for Jonathan’s dire plight, to save his life,” she said.
“Because of your close relationship with President Obama and in light of the massive American support for Jonathan’s release from a ‘grossly disproportionate sentence’ there are no more excuses!” she said. “Time is running out! Mr. Peres, please, act without delay!” Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president emeritus of the National Council of Young Israel, who leads the American campaign for Pollard, said the holiday season was the right time to ask Obama for clemency.
“Hanukka is a perfect opportunity for President Peres to ask for this humane gesture from President Obama,” Lerner said. “It is a matter of justice. It is a humanitarian issue. Most important of all, it is a matter of saving a life. What is Peres waiting for?”