On April 9, 2019, 25-year-old Israeli and U.S. citizen Naama Issahar was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport - customs officers found 9.6 grams of hash in her baggage. Issakhar had a connecting flight in Moscow - it flew from India to Tel Aviv. In the course of checking luggage in the packing room with the help of a service dog named Pacco Pride, hashish was found in Issakhar's backpack. Issahar did not deny that the drugs belonged to her. The girl explained to law enforcement authorities that she had been living in India for three months, working as a yoga instructor, and put cannabis in her suitcase a long time ago, and, collecting things on a trip, forgot to remove it from her suitcase.

After interrogation, the woman was arrested and imprisoned in a pre-trial detention center. Soon she was charged under Art. 228 of the Criminal Code (Illegal possession of narcotic substances), the maximum sanction for which is three years in prison.

The investigation lasted ten days, and then was sent to the prosecutor's office for approval of the indictment. The supervisory authority saw in the actions of Issakhar another corpus delicti - under Part 2 of Art. 229.1 of the Criminal Code (Smuggling of drugs). After three months of additional investigation, the girl was charged under two articles, and at the end of July 2019, the Khimki city court began to consider him.

The sentencing is due on October 2. Issahar faces ten years in prison.

It is worth noting that the girl checked in her luggage at the starting point of the route and did not have access to it in Russia. Moreover, Issakhar did not pass customs control at Sheremetyevo. For four hours, during which she was waiting for a flight to Israel, the girl was in the so-called sterile zone - the territory between the checkpoint at the airport and the plane.

Unique charge

Issakhar’s defense notes that the charge of smuggling in this case, when there was no fact of crossing Russian customs, is unprecedented.

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“I have studied the practice of ships assigned to airports over the past 15 years, and this is the first such case,” says RT lawyer Issakhar Alexander Taits. - A man flew in transit. The prosecution indicated that she crossed the customs border. Formally, this is so - she really crossed it through the air. However, since Issakhar did not go through the customs point and did not even intend to do this, there was no corpus delicti in her actions. She handed over her baggage, in which the drug was located, to Delhi - it was checked in before Tel Aviv. Naama did not request baggage at Sheremetyevo and did not have access to it in Russia. If, in theory, she flew from Sheremetyevo by domestic flight, then she would have to get luggage and go through customs. But in this case, Issahar could go through the red corridor and refuse to commit a crime by surrendering a narcotic substance. ”

The defender believes that if guided by the logic of state prosecution, Issakhar crossed the border of the Russian Federation when she was on board the plane.

“According to the logic of law enforcement officers, the passengers of all civilian vessels transiting through the airspace of the Russian Federation are smugglers. Then you need to introduce a new corpus delicti into the Criminal Code - transit smuggling, ”says Taits.

According to the lawyer, after the case was returned from the prosecutor's office to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the investigation was carried out for three whole months, but in fact there were almost no investigative actions.

“During this time, a police officer who intercepted Naama in the transit zone and delivered to the duty unit was only interrogated,” said the lawyer. “As a result, there was no new evidence in the case on charges of smuggling.” The state prosecution formulates smuggling in the same words as transportation, referring to the customs legislation and the law “On the State Border of the Russian Federation”.

At the same time, Issakhar is ready to admit guilt under the article on drug possession.

“Despite the fact that the girl did not leave the so-called sterile zone, Russian legislation is in force on this territory, which prohibits the possession of drugs,” explains Taits.

It is noteworthy that in Israel, where Issakhar hadhish was taken, the storage of substances weighing up to 15 grams for personal use is legal.

The press service of the Moscow Interregional Transport Prosecutor's Office did not respond to RT questions on the merits. The Transport Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Central Federal District refused to answer RT's questions about the progress of the investigation and the charge against, citing Art. 161 Code of Criminal Procedure (Inadmissibility of disclosure of preliminary investigation data).

Marat Fayzulin, a lawyer and former deputy head of the Federal Customs Service’s anti-smuggling department, also notes that the charge of smuggling is illegal.

“Paragraph 25 of Article 2 of the Customs Code describes the definition of illegal movement of goods across the customs border,” Fayzulin explains in an interview with RT. - It states that smuggling is the movement of goods across the customs border outside the customs points or outside the hours of their work, or with concealment from customs control, inaccurate declaration or non-declaration, or using forged documents. None of the signs of a violation of this rule of law by an Israeli citizen. Thus, the article on smuggling was incriminated to her unreasonably. ”

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Attorney Yekaterina Dukhina also agrees that the girl was charged unreasonably under article 229 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

“But the most important thing in this story is to understand that from the point of view of the transportation and storage of narcotic substances described in article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the laws and rules that apply outside the territory of transit laws,” Duhina commented on RT. “However, if this absurd practice continues, then the anti-drug articles can equally well be applied to foreign drugs in first-aid kits traveling in transit through Russia if they contain substances prohibited by us or are not accredited in the Russian Federation.”

The foreigner who appeared in the Russian pre-trial detention center was assisted by diplomats. The Israeli consul in Moscow, Jaffa Olevitsky, and the consular department of the Ministry of Israel have been in contact with the Issahar family since her arrest and have provided consular and humanitarian assistance. Israeli diplomats explained that they could not interfere in litigation in another country.

"The Russians made it clear that we are talking about a criminal offense that requires a trial in accordance with Russian law," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.