US basketball star Brittney Griner stood trial on Friday, four and a half months after she was arrested on charges of possession of cannabis oil while returning to play for a Russian team, in a case that emerged amid strained relations between Moscow and Washington.
The first session of the trial, which was adjourned to July 7, presented the most extensive public interaction between Griner and journalists since the Phoenix Mercury headquarters and the two-time US Olympic gold medalist were arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport in February.
Griner, 31, was taken to the courtroom in the capital’s suburb of Khimki in handcuffs, holding a water bottle and what looked like a magazine, and wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt.
Police said he was carrying vape cans containing cannabis oil when he was detained at the airport. He could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of large-scale drug possession.
WATCH l Brittney Griner’s trial begins:
US women’s basketball star Brittney Griner appeared in Russian court on Friday on charges of possession of marijuana. If found guilty, she could face 10 years in prison. The deputy chief of mission of the US Embassy supported Griner in court, saying that the Russian Federation had wrongfully detained the WNBA player.
State-owned Tass news agency quoted Griner as saying in court that he understood the charges against him. When asked by the judge if he would like to make a plea, Griner replied, “No at this time, your honor. At a later date,” he replied. .
Fewer than 1 percent of defendants are acquitted in Russian criminal cases, and acquittals can be overturned, unlike US courts.
The prosecution questioned two witnesses, an airport customs officer speaking in public and an unidentified witness in a closed session. according to the state news agency RIA-Novosti. The court later said that the hearing was adjourned after the other two witnesses did not show up.
Griner’s lawyer, Alexander Boykov, said he did not want to comment out of court “on the details of the case and the charges” because it was too early to do so.
Boykov also told RIA-Novosti that he was exercising and walking in the detention area. Russian website Business FM told reporters that Griner, who laughed from time to time, wished he could work more and was struggling because he didn’t understand Russian. He played for UMMC Ekaterinburg in Russia as well as WNBA’s Mercury.
Elizabeth Rood, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Moscow, was in court and said she spoke to Griner, who was “as good as can be expected in these difficult circumstances.”
“The Russian Federation has wrongfully detained Brittney Griner,” Rood said. “Unjust detention is unacceptable wherever it occurs and is a threat to the safety of everyone who travels, works and lives abroad,” he said.
He said he was “working hard to bring Brittney and all wrongfully detained U.S. citizens home safely” from the highest levels of the U.S. government.
At the preliminary hearing held behind closed doors on Monday, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months, until 20 December.
His case is at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations. Griner was arrested less than a week before Russia sent troops to Ukraine, adding to the already high tensions between the two countries. The US then imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow, and Russia denounced the US for sending weapons to Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied on Friday that politics played a role in Griner’s arrest and prosecution.
“The facts are that the famous athlete was detained in possession of prohibited drugs containing narcotic drugs,” Peskov told reporters. “Given what I have said, it cannot be politically motivated,” he added.
Griner’s supporters kept a low profile hoping for a quiet resolution until May, when the State Department reclassified Griner as wrongfully detained and shifted oversight of the case to the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs – de facto the US government’s chief negotiator.
Griner’s wife, Cherelle, called on President Joe Biden to secure his release, calling him a “political pawn”.
Phoenix Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard said on Monday, “It was nice to see him in some of these footage, but it’s difficult. It reminds me every time that his teammates, his friends, were unfairly imprisoned in another country,” she said.
prisoner exchange
Griner’s supporters encouraged a prisoner swap, like the one in April that brought home former Marine Chief Trevor Reed, in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of a drug trafficking conspiracy.
Russian news media have repeatedly raised speculation that he could be traded for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed “The Death Dealer,” who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiring to kill US citizens and aid a terrorist organization. .
Russia has been agitating for Bout’s release for years. However, the wide discrepancy between Griner’s case — which includes his alleged possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Bout’s global deals on deadly weapons could make such a swap unpleasant for the United States.
Others have suggested that he could be traded in with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security chief who was sentenced to 16 years in prison on an espionage conviction that the US has repeatedly described as a trap.
Source : https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/brittney-griner-trial-begins-moscow-1.6508214?cmp=rss
