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| Photo Credit: AP. |
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Monday set Oct. 25 as the date for American basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession.
Griner, an
eight-time all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time
Olympic gold medalist, was convicted Aug. 4 after police said they found vape
canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo
Airport.
The Moscow
region court said it will hear her appeal.
Griner
admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage, but testified that she had
inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. Her
defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis
to treat pain.
Her February
arrest came at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington,
just days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At the time, Griner,
recognized as one of the greatest players in WNBA history, was returning to
Russia, where she played during the U.S. league’s offseason.
The
nine-year sentence was close to the maximum of 10 years, and Griner’s lawyers
argued after the conviction that the punishment was excessive. They said in
similar cases defendants have received an average sentence of about five years,
with about a third of them granted parole.
Before her
conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully
detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected.
Reflecting
the growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to bring Griner
home, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of revealing
publicly in July that Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to get
Griner home, along with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in
Russia for espionage.
Blinken
didn’t elaborate, but The Associated Press and other news organizations have
reported that Washington has offered to exchange Griner and Whelan for Viktor
Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and
once earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”
The White
House said it has not yet received a productive response from Russia to the
offer.
Russian
diplomats have refused to comment on the U.S. proposal and urged Washington to
discuss the matter in confidential talks, avoiding public statements.
U.S.
President Joe Biden met last month with Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney
Griner, as well as the player’s agent, Lindsay Colas. Biden also sat down
separately with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan’s sister.
The White
House said after the meetings that the president stressed to the families his
“continued commitment to working through all available avenues to bring
Brittney and Paul home safely.”
The Biden
administration carried out a prisoner swap in April, with Moscow releasing
Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for the U.S. releasing a Russian pilot,
Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.