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 courtroom’s verdict throughout a listening to in Khimki outdoors Moscow, on Aug. 4, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
conceal caption
toggle caption
Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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 courtroom’s verdict throughout a listening to in Khimki outdoors Moscow, on Aug. 4, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Jailed American basketball star Brittney Griner has been moved from a detention middle outdoors of Moscow and is being despatched to a Russian penal colony to start serving out her nine-year sentence on drug smuggling costs, her legal professionals mentioned Wednesday.
An announcement launched by Griner’s authorized group says they don’t have data on Griner’s “actual present location or her closing vacation spot.”
The assertion additionally mentioned that in accordance with “normal Russian process,” they anticipate Russian authorities will notify Griner’s authorized group 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 courtroom resolution that upheld Griner’s conviction on drug smuggling charges 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 change.
“Each minute that Brittney Griner should endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too lengthy,” mentioned 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 therapy and the circumstances she could also be compelled to endure in a penal colony,” the assertion mentioned.
The White Home says it made a “substantial supply” over the summer time — broadly reported to contain a suggested trade of convicted Russian arms seller Viktor Bout — in change for Griner and one other jailed American, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
White Home officers additionally preserve that Griner’s freedom is an administration precedence and repeatedly inspired Moscow to take the deal or suggest a severe counteroffer.
In a latest interview with CNN, President Biden mentioned the one purpose he would interact with Russian President Vladimir Putin at this month’s G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, can 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 girls’s skilled basketball league earlier this yr. In August, a Russian court sentenced Griner to 9 years in jail.
In courtroom, 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 take a look at.
But Griner’s arrest and subsequent trial shadowed the war in Ukraine and cratering U.S.-Russian relations that her supporters say have made her a hostage to geopolitics.
Griner’s Russian legal professionals additionally notice the American’s nine-year sentence on drug costs was unusually harsh, even by Russian authorized requirements.
