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 workforce mentioned 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 mentioned 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 might result in a high-stakes prisoner change between Washington and Moscow.
Griner’s authorized workforce mentioned 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 attorneys mentioned 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 ultimate vacation spot. Such transfers can take days.
The 32-year-old star athlete, who was detained whereas returning to play for a Russian workforce throughout the WNBA’s offseason, has admitted that she had the canisters in her baggage. But she testified that she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no felony intent. Her protection workforce introduced written statements that she had been prescribed hashish to deal with ache.
“Every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too long,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned. “As we have said before, the U.S. Government made a significant offer to the Russians to resolve the current unacceptable and wrongful detentions of American citizens.”
The Associated Press and different information organizations have reported that Washington has provided to change Griner and Paul Whelan — an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage — for Viktor Bout. Bout is a Russian arms seller who’s serving a 25-year sentence within the U.S. and as soon as earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com”