Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that he is willing to cooperate with an inquiry on why Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard is still sitting in an American prison. He has told State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss that he will answer Lindenstrauss’s questions on the subject, but has so far agreed to do so only in writing.

Pollard has spent the last 21 years in U.S. prisons on the conviction of passing classified information to a United State's ally, namely Israel. His supporters claim that the information he gave was intelligence that Israel deserved to know as part of joint security agreements,. Pollard is the only person in the history of the United States to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally. The median sentence for this offence is 2 to 4 years.