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RIGA, Latvia — American WNBA star Brittney Greener is scheduled to stand trial Friday on drug charges in a Moscow court after customs officials said they found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at a Moscow airport in February , a week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Griner could face 10 years in prison if convicted of possessing a “significant amount” of hashish. She has been in custody since February and will remain in custody until December pending the outcome of her trial.
Her case is complicated by the severe deterioration in relations between Washington and Moscow. Greener’s supporters in the United States say she is a hostage and a political pawn.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected those claims last week, saying drug crimes were taken seriously in Russia and many other countries. “We can’t call her a hostage. Why call her a hostage?” he said.
“There are a number of countries that you cannot enter with drugs,” Peskov said. “This is also being pursued under Russian law. Russia is not the only country in the world that has strict laws in this sense.
Griner’s supporters in the United States have called on President Biden to negotiate a prisoner swap like the one in April, when Russia swapped former Marine Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year sentence in Connecticut for drug trafficking. Reid was jailed for nine years after being convicted of assaulting police officers.
Greener is one of two Americans the State Department says are being wrongfully detained by Russia. Former US Marine Paul Whelan has been in prison since December 2018, when he traveled to Moscow for a friend’s wedding and was arrested in his hotel room. He was jailed for 16 years after being convicted of espionage in a closed trial. He denies the charges and calls the case political.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Sunday that freeing wrongfully detained Americans like Whelan and Griner is his highest priority.
“I have no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home, and that includes Paul Whalen and Brittney Griner,” he said in an interview with CNN, refusing for comment on whether the U.S. government is seeking a prisoner swap for Whelan and Griner.
Russian media have speculated that Washington could swap Greener for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who served 25 years in the United States for conspiring to sell surface-to-air missiles to a foreign terrorist group and conspiring to kill American citizens. Baut, the inspiration for the Nicolas Cage film Warlord, allegedly smuggled weapons to warlords in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia for years – sometimes arming both sides in a conflict – until his arrest in 2008 in Thailand and his extradition in 2010 to the United States. Russia has called Bout’s arrest and conviction “illegal and political” and has been demanding his release since 2008.
Everything you need to know about Britney Griner in Russia
According to Russian customs officials, Greiner was about to fly from Moscow to New York when a sniffer dog at Sheremetyevo International Airport “indicated that there may be narcotics in the carry-on luggage of a United States citizen,” referring to Greiner. Customs officials said they found vapes in her luggage, which were later analyzed and found to contain hashish oil. The customs agency released video of the airport search, apparently captured by surveillance cameras.
In early May, the State Department determined that Greener had been wrongfully detained and transferred oversight of her case to Roger Carstens, the president’s special envoy for hostage affairs. The department did not explain the reasons for the sentence.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said at the time that the department weighs the circumstances of each case, “whether it’s the Brittney Greener case, whether it’s the Paul Whelan case, whether it’s the Americans in Iran case. There will be unique factors in each of these cases.”
Price said Greener has been “fortunate to have a network that has supported her since day one,” adding that the department has worked closely with her supporters.
About a month before the invasion of Ukraine, the State Department issued a Level 4 security alert to Americans saying “do not travel” to Russia because of the risk of arbitrary law enforcement and harassment by Russian officials, as well as tensions over Ukraine. It warns that State Department officials have limited ability to help American citizens in Russia.
“Russian officials unreasonably delayed US consular assistance for detained US citizens and arrested US citizens on trumped-up charges, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and convicted them in secret trials and/or without presenting evidence,” the warning said.
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