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More than 40 Israelis detained at Moscow airport, passports confiscated

Following two hours of questioning and fingerprinting, all passengers were released.

Domodedovo Airport. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Domodedovo Airport. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

More than 40 Israelis were detained on Wednesday at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow and their passports confiscated.

The passengers, including children, were brought to a pre-prepared area where Russian security personnel questioned them.

Following two hours of questioning and fingerprinting, all passengers were released.

The incident followed the arrest and imprisonment by Russian authorities of 26-year-old Israeli Naama Issachar, who was discovered with 9.5 grams of cannabis in her checked luggage on a connecting flight through Moscow on her way to Israel from India several months ago.

It is believed that Issachar’s heavy sentence may have been designed to pressure Israel into stopping the extradition to the United States of Russian cyber-criminal Alexei Burkov, who after four years of incarceration was ultimately sent to America on charges of hacking U.S. credit-card databases.

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