American basketball lawyers Brittney Griner announced on Monday that they were appealing the nine-year prison sentence. for drug possession and trafficking brought against his client by Russian justice.
“The team defending Britney Grinner has appealed the decision of the court in Khimki,” a statement released on Monday said. Marina Blagolovulina and Alexander Boykov, attorneys for the WNBA star.
Griner, a world and Olympic champion with her country, was sentenced to nine years in prison on August 4 by a court in Khimki, a satellite city of Moscow.
An American woman, 2.06 meters tall, who at the time of her arrest was part of the Russian UMMC team in Yekaterinburg, pleaded guilty to importing cannabis oil into Russia, although she claimed that she did not do it with malicious intent.
His lawyers questioned cannabis samples taken by the Russian police as evidence.after his detention on February 17 at the Moscow airport, where he arrived on a flight from New York.
US President Joe Biden demanded that Russia “immediately” release the 31-year-old basketball player, calling the sentence “unacceptable.”
For his part, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken proposed to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, the exchange of Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine sentenced to 16 years for espionage, for a “dealer in death”, Viktor Bout, serving a 25-year sentence in an American prison.
Moscow said negotiations were underway but urged Washington to take into account the interests of the other side and not to speculate on “the fate of specific people.”
“Negotiations are conducted by the competent authorities”said Ivan Nechaev, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Nechaev added that Moscow proceeds from the fact that the negotiation process should “take into account the interests of both sides.”
Russia warned last week that it would not negotiate a prisoner swap with the United States. through public diplomacy.
“If we start discussing in the press any details related to the exchanges, they will never take place,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
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Source: La Opinion
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