Russian court gives Brittney Griner nine years on drugs charges
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The WNBA star was arrested at a Moscow airport in February with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage.
A Russian court has found US basketball star Brittney Griner guilty of drug smuggling, and sentenced her to nine years in prison in a case that has reached the highest levels of United States-Russia diplomacy.
The court “found the defendant guilty” of smuggling and possessing “a significant amount of narcotics”, judge Anna Sotnikova told a court in the town of Khimki just outside Moscow.
The court also fined her one million rubles ($16,300).
US President Joe Biden was quick to condemn the verdict, calling it “unacceptable” and renewing his calls for the player’s release.
“My administration will continue to work tirelessly and pursue every possible avenue to bring Brittney and Paul Whelan home safely as soon as possible,” he said, referring to another American imprisoned in Russia on an espionage conviction.
Sotnikova had said on Thursday that Griner committed the crime “deliberately”. She had testified during the trial it was a mistake.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star, was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on February 17 when she entered the country with vape canisters containing cannabis oil.
She called it an “honest mistake” while speaking in the courtroom Thursday before sentencing.
“I never meant to hurt anybody, I never meant to put in jeopardy the Russian population, I never intended to break Russian law,” Griner said through a translator while standing in the metal cage reserved for defendants in Russian courtrooms.
She apologised to her family, teammates, and her spouse.
She had pleaded guilty when her trial began in July, and said then she did not bring the canisters into Russia intentionally.
Cannabis is illegal in Russia for both medicinal and recreational purposes.
Attention will now turn to the high-stakes possibility of a prisoner swap.
In July, the US Department of State designated Griner as “wrongfully detained”, moving her case under the supervision of its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, effectively the government’s chief hostage negotiator.
Then last week, in an extraordinary move, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, urging him to accept a deal under which Griner and Whelan would go free.
The Lavrov-Blinken call marked the highest-level known contact between Washington and Moscow since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than five months ago. The direct outreach over Griner is at odds with US efforts to isolate the Kremlin.
“I know everybody keeps talking about political pawn and politics, but I hope that is far from this courtroom,” Griner said Thursday before the judge’s ruling.
Griner, 31, had flown to Russia to join her team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, for the playoffs after spending time at home in the US. She has played in the Russian Women’s Basketball Premier League during the WNBA off-season.
In her testimony last week, Griner expressed puzzlement as to how the vape cartridges had ended up in her luggage.
“I still don’t understand to this day how they ended up in my bag,” she told the court on July 27. “If I had to guess on how they ended up in my bags, I was in a rush packing.”
More to follow.
