MOSCOW (AP) – Shackled and looking cautious, WNBA star Britney Greener was sentenced to be tried on Friday by a court near Moscow on charges of possession of cannabis, about 4 1/2 months after her arrest at an airport while returning to plays for a Russian team.
The Phoenix Mercury Center and the two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist were also sentenced to remain in custody for the duration of the criminal trial. Greener could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of drug trafficking on a large scale. Less than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases have been acquitted, and unlike the United States, acquittals can be overturned.
At a preliminary closed-door hearing Monday in a court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months. Photographs obtained by the Associated Press show the 31-year-old woman in handcuffs looking straight ahead, unlike a previous appearance in court, where she kept her head bowed and covered with a hood.
Her detention and trial come to an extremely low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops to Ukraine, which exacerbated the already high tensions with broad United States sanctions and Russia’s denunciation of US arms supplies to Ukraine.
Amid tensions, Greener’s supporters did not expect a quiet solution until May, when the State Department reclassified her as illegally detained and transferred oversight of her case to its special envoy to the president for hostages – in fact the head of the US government negotiating.
Griner’s wife, Scherel, called on President Joe Biden in May to secure her release, calling her a “political pawn.”
Her supporters encouraged an exchange of prisoners like the one in April, which returned Marine veteran Trevor Reed home in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking.
Russian media have repeatedly speculated that she could be replaced by Russian arms dealer Victor Booth, nicknamed the “Death Dealer” who is serving a 25-year sentence for plotting to assassinate US citizens and aiding a terrorist organization. . .
Russia has been campaigning for Booth’s release for years. But the discrepancy between Griner’s case – she claims to have been found in possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil – and Booth’s global dealings with deadly weapons could make such an exchange unpleasant for the United States.
Others speculate that it could be changed in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence for espionage, which the United States has repeatedly described as a fabrication.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken asked on CNN on Sunday if a joint exchange of Greens and Whelan against Booth was being considered, and he sidestepped the issue.
“As a general proposal … I have no higher priority than to ensure that Americans who are illegally detained in one way or another around the world return home,” he said. But “I cannot comment in detail on what we are doing, except to say that this is an absolute priority.”
Any exchange would obviously require Griner to be convicted and convicted first, and then to apply for a presidential pardon, said Maria Jarmusch, a lawyer specializing in international civil affairs, for Kremlin-funded television channel RT.
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