An aide says the Israeli prime minister has asked the Obama administration to let a former US navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel leave prison to attend his father’s funeral.
The White House had spurned Israeli requests to let Jonathan Pollard visit his father before he died Saturday.
The aide to Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday “his people are in contact with people in Washington explore the possibility” of Pollard’s attending his father’s funeral.
The aide did not say what reply Israel may or may not have received. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the Pollard case is a sensitive matter between the two nations.
Pollard, who admitted spying for Israel, was arrested in 1985 and sentenced for providing tens of thousands of pages of classified information to Israel. Netanyahu in January asked US President Barack Obama to grant him clemency.
