Israeli Spy Case
Sentence Reduced for Pentagon Analyst Who Leaked to AIPAC Officials
By JTA
June 12, 2009 -- -WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A former Pentagon analyst who pled guilty to passing secret information to two former AIPAC staffers had his sentence drastically reduced.
Larry Franklin was sentenced to probation and 10 months of "community confinement," or a halfway house, along with 100 hours of community service. In 2005, he had received a sentence of 12 and 1/2 years in prison but was free pending his cooperation with prosecutors in the case against the two formers AIPAC staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.
The charges against those two men for passing classified information were dropped by federal prosecutors last month who said that restrictions the judge had placed on the case made the government unlikely to prevail.
In a Thursday afternoon hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., prosecutors asked Judge T.S. Ellis to reduce Franklin's sentence to eight years, saying he played an important role in the case but was "not what you'd call an ideal cooperator." Franklin attorney Plato Cacheris said Franklin had "paid his penalty and suffered greatly," and should not have to serve any time in prison.
Ellis said he didn't have an opinion on the dismissal of the case against Rosen and Weissman, but the fact that the case was dropped was a "significant" factor in the sentencing of Franklin. Ellis also noted in Franklin's defense that other leakers of government secrets in recent years have not been prosecuted. On the other hand, he noted that "this case is different from Rosen and Weissman because Mr. Franklin is a goverment official." For that reason, Ellis said Franklin's community service should consist of speaking to young people about the importance of public officials obeying the law, he said.
Franklin has said he leaked information to the former AIPAC staffers, as well as an Israeli diplomat, because of "frustration with policy" on Iran at the Pentagon. He believed that they would be able to relay that information on Iran to friends on the U.S. National Security Council.
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Netanyahu appealed to Palestinians “begin negotiations immediately without preconditions”, but he proceeded to list his own list of preconditions. Palestinians have to “clearly and unambiguously” recognise Israel as a Jewish state. He said the Palestinian refugee problem has to be settled outside Israel’s borders, a Palestinian state has to be totally demilitarised with no control of the air space, and Jerusalem would remain “the undivided capital of Israel”. Netanyahu added he had no intention of freezing existing settlements, turning down US President Barack Obama’s request to stop the so-called “natural growth” of settlements and illegal outposts. He also concluded by calling on Palestinians to decide “between the path of peace and the path of Hamas”.
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