Israeli Jailed in Russia for Cannabis to Appeal, Says Mother

Jerusalem, Oct 14 (AFP) The mother of an Israeli-American jailed in Russia for smuggling cannabis said she visited her in jail Monday and found her "exhausted, fed up and confused" after her sentencing Friday.

Naama Issachar was caught with nine grammes of the drug in her checked luggage while transiting from India to Israel at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport in April. She said she had no thought of smuggling and had been brought forcibly onto Russian soil from the transit area.

"Why did they push me into Russia?" Yaffa Issachar quoted her daughter as saying in an interview with Israeli public radio. "I didn't intend to enter Moscow, why has all this happened to me?" The 26-year-old was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail by a Russian court on Friday.

Moscow reportedly seeks to trade her for a Russian jailed in Israel while awaiting extradition to the United States for alleged cyber crimes and credit card fraud. Russian and Israeli media have reported that Moscow is seeking a swap to stop the US obtaining custody of Aleksey Burkov, detained in Israel since 2015.

Yaffa Issachar said that Naama was furious when her mother told her what was being reported.

"She asked me to explain who this person is, what has it got to do with her." Yaffa said that she had received "threatening" messages from someone purporting to be a friend of Burkov.

"He said, 'let's join forces and get him out'," she told the radio. "I didn't answer him," she added. "What has Naama and nine grammes got to do with a hacker in jail in Israel." On the day of the trial, but before the verdict was announced she said, the friend contacted her again.

"He sent me an e-mail saying that she was going to get five to seven years." The interviewer asked Yaffa how he could have so accurately predicted the sentence and she replied simply, "I don't know." She said that Naama had 10 days to appeal the sentence and her lawyer was working on it.

Asked if her counsel was confident she replied "Not really," saying that he had more confidence in ongoing political efforts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised her detention with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of the verdict and said the sentence requested by prosecutors was disproportionate.

On Friday, Netanyahu's office seemed to acknowledge the prisoner exchange request, but cited an Israeli supreme court ruling upholding Burkov's extradition to the United States.

On Sunday Israeli president Reuven Rivlin added his own appeal to Putin, asking that he pardon Naama. Her mother said that on hearing the news, Naama told her: "Why do I need a pardon? What did I do. (AFP)

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