Liad Goldberg, the sister of Naama Issachar who is serving a 7.5-year sentence in a Russian prison for possession of a small amount of marijuana, says that Naama is having a difficult time in jail, a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report said.

“Physically, she’s safe and everything, but I personally truly worry for her emotional and mental well-being,” Goldberg – a 32-year-old production assistant who lives in Los Angeles – told the JTA. “My mom saw her a couple of days ago and she’s losing it. She can’t really take it anymore.”

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered that the extradition of the Russian hacker Alexei Burkov to the United States be temporarily postponed.

Burkov is wanted in the United States for alleged cyber credit fraud and the Supreme Court had already approved his extradition. However, Burkov has become a bargaining chip for the release of Issachar from prison, possibly due to his ties to Russian cyber intelligence, although Burkov denied this.

Issachar’s family implored Israeli Justice Amir Ohana to delay Burkov’s extradition order but Ohana did not comply. “I suggest not to create a very dangerous precedent – that every time a country wants someone to be extradited, it captures an Israeli citizen and turns them into a scapegoat,” Ohana told Kan radio last month.

After Ohana signed the extradition order, the Issachar family, as well as Burkov himself, filed petitions to the Supreme Court against the extradition. The court ruled that the extradition will be delayed until Burkov’s petition is examined.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)