Israeli president asks Putin to pardon woman

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday appealed to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to pardon an Israeli-American jailed for smuggling cannabis who is reportedly caught up in a prisoner exchange request.

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. The 26-year-old was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail by a Russian court on Friday, with Moscow reportedly seeking an exchange of a prisoner set to be extradited by Israel to the United States for her release.

"Naama made a grave mistake and has admitted her crime, but in the case of a young woman with no criminal record, the severe sentence handed down will have a deeply destructive impact on her life," Rivlin wrote in a letter to Putin distributed by his office.

Russian and Israeli media have reported that Moscow is seeking an exchange to prevent Israel from extraditing Aleksey Burkov, a Russian citizen detained in Israel since 2015 for alleged cyber crimes and credit card fraud.