U.S. WNBA basketball participant Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with unlawful possession of hashish, sits inside a defendants’ cage after the court docket’s verdict throughout a listening to in Khimki outdoors Moscow, on Aug. 4, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Photos
U.S. WNBA basketball participant Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with unlawful possession of hashish, sits inside a defendants’ cage after the court docket’s verdict throughout a listening to in Khimki outdoors Moscow, on Aug. 4, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Jailed American basketball star Brittney Griner has been moved from a detention heart outdoors of Moscow and is being despatched to a Russian penal colony to start serving out her nine-year sentence on drug smuggling expenses, her attorneys stated Wednesday.
A press release launched by Griner’s authorized crew says they don’t have data on Griner’s “precise present location or her remaining vacation spot.”
The assertion additionally stated that in accordance with “normal Russian process,” they anticipate Russian authorities will notify Griner’s authorized crew and the U.S. embassy of Griner’s whereabouts upon arrival at her vacation spot.
Russian jail transfers can prolong from a number of days to a number of weeks.
The switch transfer follows a Russian appeals court docket resolution that upheld Griner’s conviction on drug smuggling expenses final month.
The White Home assailed the choice as “sham justice” — even because it made clear it continues to work to achieve Griner’s freedom by way of a possible prisoner alternate.
“Each minute that Brittney Griner should endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too lengthy,” stated White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a press release.
“Because the Administration continues to work tirelessly to safe her launch, the President has directed the Administration to prevail on her Russian captors to enhance her remedy and the situations she could also be compelled to endure in a penal colony,” the assertion stated.
The White Home says it made a “substantial supply” over the summer time — extensively reported to contain a urged commerce of convicted Russian arms supplier Viktor Bout — in alternate for Griner and one other jailed American, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
White Home officers additionally keep that Griner’s freedom is an administration precedence and repeatedly inspired Moscow to take the deal or suggest a critical counteroffer.
In a latest interview with CNN, President Biden stated the one motive he would have interaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin at this month’s G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, could be to debate Griner’s launch.
Griner was first detained for carrying lower than a gram (0.04 oz.) of cannabis oil into Russia when she arrived for play within the Russian ladies’s skilled basketball league earlier this 12 months. In August, a Russian court docket sentenced Griner to 9 years in jail.
In court docket, Griner admitted to mistakenly packing two vape cartridges in her rush to pack her baggage — however supplied paperwork that confirmed the oil was legally prescribed by her U.S. physician for ache administration. She additionally by no means failed a drug check.
But Griner’s arrest and subsequent trial shadowed the conflict in Ukraine and cratering U.S.-Russian relations that her supporters say have made her a hostage to geopolitics.
Griner’s Russian attorneys additionally word the American’s nine-year sentence on drug expenses was unusually harsh, even by Russian authorized requirements.
