Star basketball player Brittney Griner has been shipped off to a Russian re-education camp to serve out her sentence for drug possession, her legal team revealed on Wednesday.
A Russian court has rejected his motion to challenge his nine-year prison sentence handed down last month. The American, who played for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA and won two Olympic gold medals, was found guilty on August 4 after police found vaping cartridges containing cannabis oil in his luggage at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow.
His arrest came amid tensions between Moscow and Washington, just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the highly politicized case could lead to a prisoner swap between Russia and the United States.
Griner’s lawyers said she left a penitentiary for a re-education camp — a type of penitentiary where Russian prisoners work for a pittance — on November 4. They said Wednesday they did not know where she was exactly, or where she would end her journey. However, they expect to be notified when it has reached its final destination. Such transfers may take several days to complete.
In a statement stressing that a diplomatic ballet was taking place in order to obtain the release of Griner, the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken recalled that the Russian authorities regularly offer the embassy access to Griner, as planned. .
The 32-year-old athlete, who was intercepted on her way back to Vladimir Putin’s country to join his Russian club to continue his WNBA off-season activities, admitted she had been carrying cartridges cannabis oil in his luggage. She said, however, that she did so by mistake by hastily packing up her luggage, and clarified that she had no criminal intent. His team of lawyers has also submitted written notes that claim that he was prescribed cannabis to treat chronic pain.
The Associated Press and several other media organizations have reported that Washington has offered to trade Griner and Paul Whealan — an American who is currently serving a 16-year prison term in Russia for espionage — for Viktor Bout. Bout is a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States and has previously been dubbed the “dealer of death”.
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