Putin pardons US-Israeli woman jailed in Russia for drug trafficking: Kremlin

• The pardon came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected later Wednesday in Moscow where he is due to meet Putin.

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday pardoned an Israeli-US woman sentenced by a Russian court to seven-and-a-half years in jail for drug trafficking, the Kremlin said.

The pardon came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected later Wednesday in Moscow where he is due to meet Putin.

Naama Issachar, 26, was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport in April 2019 as she travelled from India to Israel. Russian authorities said they found nine grammes (three ounces) of cannabis in her checked luggage.

"Guided by the principles of humanity, I pardon Naama Issachar," said the decree cited by the Kremlin.

Issachar made a written request for a pardon, her lawyers said in a statement quoted by Russian press agencies on Sunday.

Issachar's mother Yaffa met Putin when he was on an official visit to Israel last week.

Following the meeting, the mother told media that Putin had "promised" he would send her daughter back home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yaffa Issachar had already asked Putin several times to free the young woman.

In December, Issachar lost an appeal against her sentence which Netanyahu has described as disproportionate.

The Israeli foreign ministry had called the verdict "harsh and disproportionate" and President Reuven Rivlin had appealed to Putin's "mercy and compassion" when asking him to intervene in the case.