MOSCOW (AP) – American basketball star Brittney Griner was tried on Friday, 4 and a half months after her arrest, on charges of possessing cannabis oil while playing with a Russian team again, in a case that developed amid 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 he was carrying spray cans with cannabis oil. She could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of large-scale drug transportation.
Griner, 31, was escorted to the courtroom in the Moscow suburb of Khimki while handcuffed and wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt. In a closed-door preview on Monday, his detention was extended for another six months, until December 20.
Two witnesses were questioned by the prosecution: an airport customs official, who spoke at a public hearing, and an unidentified witness at a closing session. according to the state news agency RIA-Novosti. The trial was later adjourned, he said, when two more witnesses did not appear, and the next session was set for July 7.
Alexander Boykov, Griner’s lawyer, told reporters outside the court that he “would not like to talk about the details of the case and the charges and comment on our position on the matter because it is too early for that.”
Less than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted and, unlike U.S. courts, acquittals can be overturned.
His case comes at an extraordinarily 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 radical sanctions on Moscow and Russia denounced the US for sending weapons to Ukraine.
Elizabeth Rood, the U.S. business manager in Moscow, was in court and said she spoke with Griner, who “is doing as well as can be expected in these difficult circumstances.”
“The Russian Federation has unjustly detained Brittney Griner,” Rood said. “The practice of illegal detention is unacceptable wherever it occurs and is a threat to the safety of all who travel, work and live abroad.”
He said the U.S. government, from its highest levels, “is working hard to bring Brittney and all U.S. nationals unjustly detained home safely.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday denied that politics played a role in Griner’s arrest and prosecution.
“The facts are that the famous athlete was arrested in possession of banned drugs containing narcotics,” Peskov told reporters. “In view of what I have said, it cannot have political motivations,” he added.
Griner’s supporters had kept a low profile in hopes of a peaceful settlement until May, when the State Department reclassified her as an unjustly detained and transferred oversight of her case to her special presidential envoy. for hostage matters, effectively the chief negotiator of the U.S. government.
Griner’s wife, Cherelle, has urged President Joe Biden to secure her release, calling her “a political pawn.”
“It was good to see her in some of these images, but it’s hard. It’s always a reminder that his teammate, his friend, is being unfairly imprisoned in another country, ”Phoenix Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard said Monday.
The coach hoped Biden would “take steps to make sure he got home.”
Griner supporters have encouraged a prisoner exchange like the one in April that took home Navy veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy.
Russian media have repeatedly raised speculation that it could be exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed “the merchant of death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence for convicting for conspiring to kill American citizens and for help a terrorist organization. .
Russia has been demanding Bout’s release for years. But the wide discrepancy between the Griner case, which involves alleged possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, and Bout’s global dealings with deadly weapons could make this exchange unpleasant for the United States.
Others have suggested it could be negotiated jointly with Paul Whelan, a former director of navy and security who is serving a 16-year sentence for an espionage conviction the United States has repeatedly described as a facility.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, when asked on Sunday by CNN if a joint Griner and Whelan exchange for Bout was being considered, dodged the question.
“As a general proposal … I have no higher priority than to make sure that Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,” he said. But he said he could not comment “in any detail on what we are doing, except that this is an absolute priority.”