With its sentence, the court stayed only slightly below the demand of the prosecutor. This had demanded nine and a half years in prison.
Shortly before the verdict was announced, Griner described her drug possession as an “accident”. The 31-year-old has denied the allegation of drug smuggling.
The athlete was arrested in February shortly before the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. Cartridges for e-cigarettes with cannabis oil were found in their luggage. According to prosecutors, the amount corresponded to less than one gram of cannabis in solid form.
According to Griner’s lawyer, the athlete had been prescribed the cannabis oil by the doctor as a painkiller. Even in the US, she only used it “occasionally”. In Russia, however, cannabis is also banned for medicinal purposes.
The US government is trying to free Griner and former US soldier Paul Whelan, who is also being held in Russia. In return, according to US information, Russia is demanding, among other things, the release of Russian Vadim K., who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany for the Berlin Tiergarten murder.
