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Brittney Griner, estrella de Phoenix Mercury She will remain in custody throughout her criminal trial in Russia and could face 10 years in prison if convicted on large-scale drug transportation charges.. Less than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the US, acquittals can be set aside.
This Monday, the court of the Moscow suburb of Khimki extended Griner’s detention for another six months after she appeared for a preliminary hearing held behind closed doors. Photos obtained by the AP showed her in handcuffs. Griner had previously been ordered to remain in pretrial detention until July 2.
Griner’s arrest and trial come in a extraordinarily low moment in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport less than a week before Russia sent troops to Ukraine, adding to tensions already high with sweeping US sanctions and Russia’s exposure of US arms supplies to Ukraine. .
Amid the tensions, Griner’s supporters had kept a low profile in hopes of a quiet resolution, until May, when the The State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and transferred oversight of her case to its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
That move has drawn further attention to the Griner case, with supporters cheering for a prisoner swap like the one in April that returned Navy veteran Trevor Reed home for a Russian pilot convicted of drug conspiracy.
The Russian media have repeatedly speculated that It could be redeemed for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed “The Merchant of Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence for conspiring to kill American citizens and aid a terrorist organization.
Russia has campaigned for Bout’s release for years. But the discrepancy between Griner’s case (supposedly found in possession of virtual cigarette cartridges containing cannabis oil) and Bout’s global deals in deadly weapons could make that trade unpleasant for the US.
Others have suggested she could be traded along with Paul Whelan, a former marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence for an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a setup.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, when asked Sunday on CNN if a joint trade of Griner and Whelan for Bout was being considered, responded:
“As an overarching proposition…I have no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are unlawfully detained in one way or another around the world come home.”, said. But “I cannot comment in detail on what we are doing, except to say that it is a top priority.”
Apparently, any exchange would require Griner to first be convicted and sentenced, and then apply for a presidential pardon, Maria Yarmush, a lawyer specializing in international civil affairs, told the Kremlin-funded RT television channel.
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