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MOSCOW (AP) – American basketball player Brittney Griner will be tried in a court in the Moscow area on Friday, about 4 1/2 months after she was arrested on charges of possession of marijuana at an airport while on trip was to play for a Russian team.
The Phoenix Mercury Center and two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of large-scale drug trafficking. Less than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the US, acquittals can be reversed.
At a closed pre-trial hearing on Monday in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months, until December 20.
Photos obtained by The Associated Press, including one of Griner’s few close-up shots since her Feb. 17 arrest, showed the 31-year-old looking in handcuffs and straight ahead, unlike a previous court appearance where she kept her head. and cover with a hood.
She refused to answer questions from reporters in English while being led through the courthouse, according to a video shown in Russian media. Russian media later reported Griner’s lawyers would not comment on how their client planned to plead.
The athlete’s arrest and trial come at an extraordinary low in Moscow-Washington relations. Griner was arrested at Sheremetyevo International Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops to Ukraine, which has already exacerbated high tensions between the two countries. The invasion led to extensive sanctions imposed by the United States, and Russia denounced the United States for sending weapons to Ukraine.
Amid tensions, Griner’s supporters kept a low profile in hopes of a quiet solution, until May, when the State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and shifted oversight of her case to its special presidential envoy for hostage cases – effectively the U.S. government’s chief. negotiator.
Griner’s wife, Cherelle, urged President Joe Biden to secure her release, calling her ‘a political pawn.
“It was good to see her in some of those images, but it is difficult. “Every time it is a reminder that their teammate, their friend, is wrongly imprisoned in another country,” Phoenix Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard said on Monday.
The coach hoped Biden “would take the steps to ensure she gets home.”
Griner’s supporters called for a prisoner exchange like the one in April that brought marine veteran Trevor Reed home in exchange for a Russian convicted pilot of conspiracy for drug trafficking.
Russian news media have repeatedly speculated that she could be exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed “the dealer of death”, who is serving a 25-year sentence on a conspiracy to kill American citizens and aid to provide a terrorist organization. .
Russia has been stirring for years for Bout’s release. But the wide difference between Griner’s case – which involves the alleged possession of vape cartridges containing marijuana oil – and Bout’s global lethal weapons deals could make such an exchange distasteful for the US.
Others have suggested that his dealings may be with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security director who is serving a 16-year sentence on a espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a conspiracy.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sidestepped the question when asked on CNN on Sunday whether a joint exchange of Griner and Whelan for Bout was being considered.
“As a general proposal … I have no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are somehow detained illegally come home around the world,” he said. But he said he could not “comment in any detail on what we were doing except to say it was an absolute priority.”
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