A bipartisan slate of nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives urged Bolivian President Evo Morales to bring about the release of New York businessman Jacob Ostreicher, who has been jailed without charges for 18 months. A Bolivian appeals court this week refused to release Ostreicher, instead sending his case back to a lower…
Long months of standstill in the case of Jacob Ostreicher, a New York Jewish businessman locked up in Bolivia for 20 months, have given way in recent weeks to a flurry of activity that has spurred hope for Ostreicher’s possible release. In a dramatic sequence of events, top Bolivian government officials involved in the prosecution…
A Bolivian appeals court refused to release New York businessman Jacob Ostreicher, who has been jailed without charges for 18 months, instead sending his case back to a lower court. Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox father of five and grandfather of 11 from Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested in June 2011 by Bolivian police after it was…
A Republican congressman from New Jersey and a Democratic congresswoman from New York are in Bolivia to press for the release of a businessman who has been jailed without charges of 18 months. Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) arrived this week to seek the release of Jacob Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox father…
Six Bolivian government officials, allegedly involved with a scheme to rob and extort Jacob Ostreicher, an American Jewish businessman, were arrested on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Ostreicher has been in jail for the past 18 months on suspicion of money laundering. Ostreicher and his supporters have argued since his arrest that he was…
An American Jew’s desperate plea to Israel and the American Jewish community for help has highlighted his plight as a captive of Al Qaeda in Pakistan, which has held him for more than a year. In two videotaped messages released by the terror group in September, Warren Weinstein, a foreign aid contract worker from Maryland,…
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) has sponsored a bill designed to ban entry into the country by officials of any foreign government complicit in violating the rights of imprisoned Americans. Nicknamed Jacob’s Law, the bill was written in honor of Jacob Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn who has been in prison in Bolivia since…
Gathered outside a Bolivian diplomatic office in New York, several hundred Jewish protesters raised signs and chanted slogans calling for the release of Jacob “Yankel” Ostreicher, a Brooklyn businessman held without charge for a year in the South American nation. A video of the May 3 demonstration reveals a sea of yarmulkes and black hats….
