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Naama Issachar’s mother arrives at Moscow Region’s prison to see her daughter released

The woman has joined a group of journalists who have been flocking around the penitentiary’s entryway since morning waiting for Naama to be freed

Jaffa Issachar Gavriil Grigorov/TASS

Jaffa Issachar

© Gavriil Grigorov/TASS

NOVOYE GRISHINO /Moscow Region/. January 28. /TASS/. Jaffa Issachar, the mother of Israeli national Naama Issachar, who was convicted to 7.5 years in prison in Russia on drugs smuggling charges, has arrived at the penitentiary facility in the Moscow Region where her daughter is serving her sentence, a TASS correspondent reported from the site.

Jaffa Issachar came in the waiting room to leave it several minutes later. According to Jaffa, she did not see her daughter in there.

Read also

Moscow Region’s commission for pardons approves Issachar’s pardoning

Now, she has joined a group of journalists who have been flocking around the penitentiary’s entryway since morning waiting for Naama to be released.

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. The Moscow Regional Court upheld the verdict on December 19.

During his visit to Israel last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Naama’s mother, Jaffa Issachar, and promised her that "everything is going to be fine."

Issachar pled for pardon on January 26. On the following day, the Moscow Region’s commission for pardons approved her plea.

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