U.S. Reportedly Denied Access to Spy Case Figure

WASHINGTON — Israeli officials have stymied efforts by U.S. investigators to question an American living in Israel who they believe may have funneled money to convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard, sources familiar with the case said Wednesday.

The sources identified the man as Harold Katz, a lawyer who has joint citizenship in the United States and Israel.

Richard A. Green, Katz’s Washington attorney, denied that his client had any connection with Pollard, who recently was sentenced to life in prison. Green, who said he had spoken with Katz in the last two days, said that his client had authorized him to say that “he was never involved in and knows nothing about” the Pollard matter.

Refuses Comment

Green denied that Katz has refused to talk to American officials and that the Israeli government has refused to let him be questioned in Israel. When asked if Katz has refused to return to the United States to be questioned by a grand jury, Green said: “I’m not commenting on that.”

Justice Department investigators regard Israel’s refusal to give them access to Katz as another form of resistance to their probe of possible involvement by high-level Israeli officials in the Pollard case, sources said.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Katz may know whether Pollard’s activities had the approval of higher-ranking Israeli officials than Col. Aviem Sella, who has been indicted by a grand jury here as a conspirator in Pollard’s espionage. Sella cannot be extradited to the United States to face the charges.

The Los Angeles Times published a report on March 14 which said that an American with the last name of Katz was thought by authorities to have participated in the Pollard spy ring.

Wife Also Convicted

Pollard was an intelligence analyst for the Naval Investigative Service until his arrest in November, 1985. His wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard, was convicted of receiving classified documents and sentenced to five years in prison.

Sources said that investigators are trying to determine whether Katz owns an apartment in a Washington condominium building where Israeli agents photocopied the documents that Pollard supplied to them from the Naval Investigative Service.

Green, Katz’s attorney, refused to say whether Katz owns an apartment in the building, where Irit Erb, a former secretary in the Israeli Embassy, also lived. The grand jury that indicted Pollard named Erb as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Site of Deliveries

The charges to which Pollard pleaded guilty said that he delivered documents to Erb at her apartment or “at another apartment within the same building . . . “ and that “this second apartment located in Irit Erb’s apartment building was used for monthly meetings” among Pollard, Erb and Joseph Yagur, an Israeli science consul who had replaced Sella as Pollard’s handler.

The apartment was used “to house the equipment used for photocopying and photographing certain of the classified national defense documents delivered by Pollard,” according to the charges. And it was the place where Pollard was paid some of the $2,500 a month he collected for his espionage, the charges added.