Moscow: An Indian man is facing up to seven years in prison after hashish was found in his bag at a Moscow airport, his lawyer said Tuesday, in the latest in a series of similar arrests.
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The case of Aashish Bhadourya, 21, echoes that of an Israeli-American woman, Naama Issachar, who was jailed this month for seven-and-a-half years over a larger amount of marijuana found in her luggage at the same airport as she changed flights en route from Delhi in April.
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Police found the drugs in Bhadourya’s checked luggage while he was in the transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport en route from Delhi to Prague.
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He was detained in July and is facing drug smuggling charges, his lawyer Nikita Taranishchenko told AFP. A Moscow court on Tuesday threw out an appeal of his pre-trial detention.
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In September a court in Saint Petersburg convicted a 19-year-old US woman, Audrey Elise Lorber, of drug possession after she was stopped at a city airport with marijuana and a permit for medical use. She was eventually released.
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Bhadourya was working for the Czech Embassy in Delhi after studying the language and was travelling to do a course, according to Russia’s Mediazona website, which covers court cases.
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The drugs found in his checked rucksack “do not belong to him,” but he initially made a confession “considered to be proof” by investigators, Taranishchenko said.
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His lawyer said “there was no crime committed” as Bhadourya was in the transit zone, which “is not in Russian territory”.
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The Morning and Evening Brief###
The Morning and Evening Brief