Family and supporters of convicted spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard have called on President Barack Obama to allow him to visit his father, who is dying in an Indiana hospital.

Morris Pollard’s organs have shut down following medical treatment. Activists on behalf of Jonathan Pollard have contacted government officials in the United States and Israel in an effort to get Pollard compassionate leave to see his father, who is 95, on his deathbed.

Pollard was allowed to make an emergency call to his father, but Morris Pollard was too weak to speak on the telephone.

Pollard has been in jail, serving a life sentence for spying for Israel, since his arrest in 1985. — jta