A Russian court on Thursday found American basketball player Brittney Griner guilty of drug trafficking. She was sentenced to nine years in prison. Griner was arrested in Moscow in February and has been in pre-trial detention ever since.
At a hearing in the Khimki court, the prosecutor requested nine years and six months in prison for the athlete, who will serve her sentence in a general regime correctional colony, Rossiyskaya Pressa reports. The maximum sentence was ten years. The prosecutor also demanded that Griner pay a fine of one million rubles, about 16,000 euros.
The 31-year-old athlete, winner of two Olympic gold medals, was detained in February at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow after police found two cartridges of cannabis oil in her luggage. Her lawyer, Alexander Boikov, said that the athlete, who plays in the Russian basketball championship, admitted that they were her, but brought her to Russia by mistake.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said a few days ago that the Biden administration would discuss with the Kremlin a possible prisoner swap, including Griner herself. Another American involved would be Paul Whelan, a former Marine and former head of security for a private company who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison for espionage, which he denies.
Both “were wrongly detained and should be allowed to return home,” according to Blinken, who declined to say what his country was offering in return. According to CNN, Washington is ready to hand over Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence in the United States, to Moscow.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday demanded that Russia “immediately” release Griner. “This is unacceptable and I ask Russia to release her immediately so she can be with her wife, loved ones, friends and teammates,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Source: El Correo
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