Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

The sister of the American-Israeli woman who has been jailed in Russia for seven and a half years over nine grammes of cannabis has said her sibling “is losing it” in prison.

American-Israeli national Naama Issachar, 26, was sentenced by a Russian court to seven and a half years in prison after she was caught entering the country with nine grammes of marijuana on her.

Issachar was caught with the drugs in her luggage at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow as she was catching a connecting flight back from India.

Charges of drug possession, which would have seen a typical punishment of one-month detention, were later changed to drug smuggling and Issachar was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in a Russian prison.

Her sister Liad Goldberg, who lives in Los Angeles, has now told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Physically, she’s safe and everything, but I personally truly worry for her emotional and mental well-being.

“My mum saw her a couple of days ago and she’s losing it. She can’t really take it anymore.”

Israeli officials believe Issachar’s charges were upgraded as retaliation from the Russian authorities for Israel agreeing to extradite alleged hacker Alexei Borkov to America.

Russian citizen Borkov was arrested in Israel whilst on holiday in 2015 and Israeli authorities have reportedly agreed to extradite him to America where is wanted on suspicion of hacking credit card databases of American citizens.

The countries’ respective leaders Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly met to discuss the situation but no compromise was agreed on.

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