MOSCOW (AP) — American basketball star Brittney Griner has been despatched to a penal colony in Russia to serve her sentence for drug possession, her authorized group stated Wednesday.
A Russian courtroom rejected an enchantment of her nine-year sentence final month. The eight-time all-star middle with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist was convicted Aug. 4 after police stated they discovered vape canisters containing hashish oil in her baggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
Her arrest got here at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington, simply days earlier than Russia despatched troops into Ukraine, and the politically charged case may result in a high-stakes prisoner alternate between Washington and Moscow.
Griner’s authorized group stated she left a detention middle on Nov. 4 for a penal colony — a typical kind of Russian jail the place detainees work for minimal pay. Her legal professionals stated Wednesday that they didn’t know precisely the place she was or the place she would find yourself — however that they anticipated to be notified when she reached her remaining vacation spot. Such transfers can take days.
The 32-year-old star athlete, who was detained whereas returning to play for a Russian group in the course of the WNBA’s offseason, has admitted that she had the canisters in her baggage. However she testified that she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no felony intent. Her defence group introduced written statements that she had been prescribed hashish to deal with ache.
“Each minute that Brittney Griner should endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too lengthy,” White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated. “As we’ve got stated earlier than, the U.S. Authorities made a major supply to the Russians to resolve the present unacceptable and wrongful detentions of Americans.”
The Related Press and different information organizations have reported that Washington has provided to alternate Griner and Paul Whelan — an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage — for Viktor Bout. Bout is a Russian arms vendor who’s serving a 25-year sentence within the U.S. and as soon as earned the nickname the “service provider of dying.”
