Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in a Russian courtroom on Thursday, as the bickering over the American basketball star’s fate shifted increasingly to the diplomatic arena — a disheartening prospect for Ms. Griner’s supporters amid America’s split with Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
When she appeared before a judge outside the Russian capital on the second day of her trial, Ms Griner said she inadvertently brought a banned substance into the country because she packed in a hurry. Russian authorities say they found vape cartridges containing 0.7 grams of cannabis oil in her luggage when Mrs. Griner arrived to play basketball in February, and she has been arrested since then, facing 10 years in prison in a penal colony.
“I’d like to plead guilty, Your Honor. But there was no intention. I didn’t want to break the law,” Ms Griner said in English, which was then translated into Russian, according to a Reuters reporter in court.
Ms. Griner told the court she would say more the next day of her trial, scheduled for July 14. She is charged with illegal drug possession and smuggling a “significant amount”.
By pleading guilty, Ms. Griner may have expedited the handling of her case, paving the way for a deal with the United States or perhaps a petition for a clemency.
With an all but a foregone conclusion in a Russian justice system that strongly favors prosecution, her best hope, experts say, is that the Biden administration secures her freedom by releasing a Russian held in the United States. The name of one prisoner in particular has come up: Victor Bouta Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison term.
But such negotiations cannot take place until the formalities of the Griner trial are over, Russian officials say.
“Clearly we have not completed the necessary legal proceedings,” a deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, told Russian news agencies on Thursday when asked about a possible exchange. “Until this happens, there are no nominal, formal or procedural grounds for further action.”
US officials insist they are doing everything they can to secure the release of Ms. Griner, 31, a seven-time WNBA All-Star, two-time Olympic gold medalist and the first openly gay athlete to sign an endorsement contract with Nike. During Thursday’s hearing, the Chargé d’affaires at the US Embassy in Moscow, Elizabeth Rood, handed Ms. Griner a letter from President Biden.
“Mrs. Griner was able to read that letter,” Ms. Rood told reporters outside the courtroom. “I want to reiterate the commitment of the United States government at the highest level to return Ms. Griner and all wrongly detained American citizens home safely.”
But with tensions between the United States and Russia at the highest level in decades following President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden has few options for securing her freedom. That was underlined by Mr Ryabkov on Thursday when he made some of the most comprehensive comments from a Russian official about Ms Griner’s case in the nearly five months she has spent in custody.
“Hype and publicity, despite all the love for this genre among modern politicians, only gets in the way in this particular case,” said Mr. Ryabkov. “This not only distracts from the matter, but creates interference in the truest sense of the word. That is why silence is necessary here.”
He hinted, however, that Moscow was interested in negotiating Ms Griner’s fate, saying she would be helped by “a serious reading by the American side of the signals they have received from Russia, from Moscow, through specialized channels. “
Mr Ryabkov did not specify what those signals were, though Russian state media have suggested the Kremlin might be interested in swapping the American athlete for Mr Bout, 55, a former Soviet soldier who made a fortune in the global arms trade before he was caught in a federal sting operation.
Without a deal, Mrs. Griner could face years in prison.
Arseny Levinson, a Russian lawyer who has been involved in similar cases to Ms Griner’s, said her case was “absurd” because she clearly had no criminal intent. But while her prosecution has political undertones, in many ways it is typical of Russia, where the law enforcement system often “imitates the fight against drug smuggling,” said Mr Levinson.
In most cases, Mr Levinson said, Russian courts would impose suspended sentences on people charged with Mrs Griner’s crime. But her prospects may be grim, he said, as suspended sentences against non-citizens are harder to enforce.
“Foreigners are generally given much harsher sentences than Russians,” said Mr. Levinson, who works for a nonprofit that helps suspects of drug-related crimes.
Even if the United States and Russia agreed to an exchange to bring home Ms. Griner, such a deal could take years. Trevor R. Reed, a sick former U.S. Marine detained in Russia on what his family believed to be false charges, was released in April in a prisoner swap more than two years after his arrest.
Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations who spent years working on the release of hostages through his nonprofit, engaged in months of quiet but intense diplomacy to free Mr Reed. Mr Richardson is now working on Ms Griner’s case, as well as that of a former Marine, Paul Whelan, who has been detained in Russia since 2018.
Mickey Bergman, executive director of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, said in an email that Ms. Griner’s admission of guilt was understandable. “We believe that in a situation like this, every inmate should do what he thinks can help him survive the ordeal,” Mr Bergman said in an email. “She’s fighting for her life.”
Ms. Rood, the US diplomat who attended Thursday’s trial, said Ms. Griner had told her that “she eats well, that she can read books.”
“Given the circumstances, she’s fine,” said Mrs. Red.
Griner’s lawyer, Aleksandr Boikov, said in a commentary via a messaging app that his client told the court on Thursday that she “inadvertently carried substances banned in Russia”.
“She was packing in a hurry,” he said in a telephone interview. “Due to carelessness, patterns have appeared in her luggage.”
What you need to know about Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia
after her process started last weekMrs Griner sent a handwritten letter to Mr Biden who asked him not to “forget” her and other American prisoners abroad.
On Wednesday, Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to Mrs. Griner’s wifeCherelle Griner, according to a statement released by the White House. During the phone call, the statement said, the president read out a draft of a letter he planned to send to Brittney Griner. He also said his government is “pursuing every opportunity to bring Brittney home”.
Cherelle Griner had publicly expressed frustration with Mr Biden and his government’s efforts to secure her wife’s release.
In a statement to The New York Times on Wednesday, Cherelle Griner said she was grateful to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris “for the time they spent with me and for the dedication they made to get BG home.”
The United States government has classified Brittney Griner as “wrongly detained‘ and said it would work to secure her release regardless of the outcome of the trial.
Brittney Griner’s WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury, held a rally in support of her on Wednesday.
“What and how I feel today is a deeper emotion than pain,” Cherelle Griner said at the rally. “I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated that 140 days have passed since my wife was able to talk to me, our family and our friends. I’m frustrated that my wife isn’t getting justice. I know you’re all frustrated too, that’s why I you here.”
Cherelle Griner asked the people attending the rally, several hundred fans according to The Associated Press, to make sure the Biden administration knows that “they have our support to do whatever it takes” to bring her wife home.
Brittney Griner’s communication with her family and friends in the United States was limited to letters. Recently, one of her Mercury teammates, striker Brianna Turner, wrote down her memories of their time together. “One of my favorite moments wasn’t even on the field,” said Ms Turner. “We went to Indiana and rented Lime scooters and we just rode downtown.”
Ms. Turner also told her teammate that she would be an honorary All-Star this season. Because Ms. Griner has been incarcerated since February, she has not played in the WNBA this season.
“And BG has a great sense of humor – she told me she’d probably have the worst stat line and she wouldn’t be in the game,” Ms Turner said with a laugh.
Then she got serious again: ‘We have to get her back home. She deserves to be home again. She needs to be back with her family and with her friends.”