Indian man facing Russian jail over airport drugs charged

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. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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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