In a startling public disclosure before he died, former US secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger, the man who drove Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence, admitted in a 2002 interview that the Pollard case was “a minor matter” which had been blown out of all proportion to serve another agenda.

This came as no surprise to those of us who have first-hand knowledge of the Pollard case. Weinberger was known to be driven by his deeply-held animus toward the State of Israel. His extreme bias against Israel was manifested in recurrent episodes of strong criticism and unbalanced reasoning when decisions involving Israel were being made. It is widely recognized that Weinberger’s interference in the judicial process netted Pollard a life sentence.

Jonathan Pollard was arrested in 1985 and convicted in 1987 of espionage on behalf of an American ally, Israel. Pollard’s conviction was justified, but his sentence was entirely out of line with others engaging in similar behavior. The usual sentence for this offense is no more than six or eight years, with actual jail time before release averaging two to four years or less.

Pollard is serving his 27th year of an unprecedented life sentence. Pollard received his life sentence without benefit of trial, as the result of a plea agreement which he honored and the government abrogated. Pollard’s life sentence was driven in a less-than-legitimate manner by a last-minute affidavit submitted to the sentencing judge by Weinberger.… There is no evidence that Pollard intended to harm the United States or help its enemies.

Because of a gross deficiency on the part of his attorney, who neglected to file a notice of intent to appeal following his sentencing hearing, Pollard has been forever deprived of his right to a direct appeal against his life sentence. The only appeals he was able to bring were collateral, and were dismissed on technicality, not substance.…

Pollard’s commutation is strongly supported in Israel, in the US and around the world, since it is clear that his punishment was much worse than that of anyone else who has committed a similar crime. Pollard is the only person in the history of the United States who ever received a life sentence for spying on behalf of an ally.

We believe that commuting Pollard’s sentence to time served is the right and compassionate thing to do. We believe that his continued incarceration constitutes a travesty of justice and a stain on the American system of justice.

Incredibly, there are still some with dubious agendas who oppose Pollard’s release.… A case in point is the article by Martin Peretz published [recently] by The Wall Street Journal. Peretz falsely accuses Pollard of offering classified information to other countries, such as Pakistan. This assertion is categorically false. Pollard was never accused, indicted or convicted of spying for any country other than Israel and the documented record bears this out.…

Peretz speciously claims that supporters of Pollard present him as a martyr and this, he claims, is justification for keeping Pollard in prison for the rest of his life. Peretz claims that the importance of Pollard’s release to the people of Israel, a strong US ally, is negligible. He then contradicts himself when he accuses officials who support the release of Jonathan Pollard of “sensing the public wind” and capitalizing on the Pollard issue by jumping aboard the bandwagon.

The truth is, in recent months many of my colleagues, senior American officials as well as high ranking legal officials and elected representatives, have appealed to President Barack Obama for executive clemency for Jonathan Pollard. Among them are cabinet officers, experienced jurists and officials serving at the time of Pollard’s arrest who were intimately involved in reviewing the evidence. Some of the names include: former secretary of state George Shultz, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former White House legal counsel Bernard Nussbaum, former attorney-general Michael Mukasey, former deputy attorney-general Phillip Heymann, former Senate Intelligence chairman Dennis DeConcini, former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, former CIA director James Woolsey; and many more.…

The fact that Pollard’s health is failing adds urgency to our requests for clemency.… [Yet] the numerous appeals to President Obama for executive clemency for Jonathan Pollard are all still pending. They are Pollard’s last hope of resolving a 27-year-long injustice which now threatens to end his life in prison.…

President Obama has the exclusive power to commute Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence to the nearly 27 years he has already served. It is not merely the president’s prerogative to eliminate this longstanding stain on the US justice system. We believe that it is his solemn duty.