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Commission on pardons to gather over Issachar’s plea on January 27 - ombudsperson

Earlier on Sunday, Issachar pled for pardon

MOSCOW, January 26. /TASS/. The commission on pardons will meet on January 27 to consider a plea for pardon from Israeli and US national Naama Issachar, who was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison in Russia on drugs smuggling charges, Moscow region’s human rights ombudswoman Ekaterina Semyonova told TASS on Sunday.

Earlier on Sunday, Issachar pled for pardon.

"Her verdict is seven years in prison. She is currently kept at correctional facility IK-1 in Novoye Grishino, Moscow region and is supposed to be convoyed to the city of Vladimir or any other location," Semyonova said, adding that whatever the commission’s conclusions could be, Issachar’s plea would be referred to the presidential commission on pardons.

Naama Issachar, 25, was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on April 9, 2019 when she was in the airport’s transit zone before boarding a connecting flight to Tel Aviv after arriving from New Delhi. The airport’s security guards found 9.6 grams of cannabis in her luggage.

On October 11, 2019, the Khimki City Court in the Moscow region found Issachar guilty of drug possession and smuggling (part 1, Article 228 and part 2, Article 229.1 of the Russian Criminal Code) and sentenced her to 7.5 years in a standard regime penal colony. Issachar admitted her guilt of possessing the drug but denied smuggling charges, saying she had no access to her luggage checked in for the transit flight. She claimed she never took drugs and had no idea of how the cannabis could happen to be in her backpack. Moscow’s region court upheld the verdict on December 19.