MOSCOW (AP) — U.S. basketball star Brittney Greener went on trial Friday, 4 1/2 months after her arrest on charges of possessing cannabis oil while returning to play for a Russian team, in a case that unfolded amid of strained relations between Moscow and Washington.
The Phoenix Mercury center and two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist was arrested in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after police said she was carrying cannabis oil vape pods. She could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of transporting large quantities of drugs.
Griner, 31, was escorted into the courtroom in the Moscow suburb of Khimki wearing handcuffs and a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt. At a preliminary hearing behind closed doors on Monday, her detention was extended by another six months to December 20, and her next court hearing was scheduled for July 7.
Less than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the US, acquittals can be overturned.
Her case is at an extremely low point in Moscow-Washington relations. Griner was arrested less than a week before Russia sent troops to Ukraine, exacerbating already high tensions between the two countries. The US then imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow, and Russia condemned the US for sending weapons to Ukraine.
Elizabeth Rudd, the US chargé d’affaires in Moscow, was in court and said she had spoken to Greener, who was “doing as well as could be expected under these difficult circumstances”.
“The Russian Federation wrongfully detained Brittney Greener,” Rudd said. “The practice of wrongful detention is unacceptable wherever it occurs and is a threat to the safety of anyone who travels, works and lives abroad.”
She said the U.S. government, from its highest levels, “is working hard to bring Britney and all wrongfully detained U.S. citizens home safely.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday denied that politics played a role in Griner’s detention and prosecution.
“The facts are that the famous athlete was detained in possession of prohibited drugs containing narcotic substances,” Peskov told reporters. “In view of what I said, this cannot be politically motivated,” he added.
Greener’s supporters have been huddled in hopes of a quiet resolution until May, when the State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and turned over oversight of her case to its special presidential envoy for hostage issues — effectively the U.S. government’s chief negotiator.
Greener’s wife, Cheryl, called on President Joe Biden to secure her release, calling her a “political pawn.”
“It was nice to see her in some of these images, but it’s hard. Every time it’s a reminder that their teammate, their friend, is wrongfully imprisoned in another country,” Phoenix Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard said Monday.
The coach hoped Biden would “take the steps to make sure she comes home.”
Griner’s supporters have encouraged prisoner swaps like the one in April that brought in Marine Corps veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of a drug-trafficking conspiracy.
Russian media have repeatedly speculated that she could be swapped 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 providing aid to a terrorist organization.
Russia has been campaigning for Bout’s release for years. But the stark disparity between Greener’s case — which involved the alleged possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Booth’s global dealings in lethal weapons could make such an exchange unpalatable to the U.S.
Others suggested she could be traded in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a fraud.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, asked Sunday on CNN if a joint swap of Greener and Whelan for Booth was being considered, sidestepped the question.
“As a general proposition … I have no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,” he said. But he said he could not comment “in detail on what we are doing, other than to say it is an absolute priority”.
Add Comment