US basketball player Brittney Griner’s nine-year prison sentence in Russia will not be reduced after her appeal. The US government continues to speak of a “sham trial”, Griner’s lawyers of a disproportionately harsh sentence.
US basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against her nine-year prison sentence for drug smuggling in Russia has been rejected. This was announced by the court in Krasnogorsk near Moscow after Griner’s hearing.
The US government led by President Joe Biden, which has been campaigning for the release of the 32-year-old for months, described the court’s decision as “another legal sham trial” and that Griner will continue to be “wrongly detained under unbearable circumstances”. Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor, said President Biden had “shown he is willing to make extraordinary efforts and difficult decisions to bring Americans home.” In the summer there was talk of a prisoner exchange between Russia and the USA.
Griner had protested in a video link that imprisonment was “very, very stressful and traumatic” and asked the court to reduce the sentence. The court refused, but stated that each day of her detention would count as one and a half days towards her sentence.
The two-time Olympic champion has been jailed since February. She was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for carrying vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. The verdict was made in early August. Marijuana is banned in Russia, and Griner said she had permission from a US doctor to use medicinal cannabis due to her multiple injuries.
Griner’s lawyers said after the verdict that their client remained “one of the most severely punished defendants in Russia”. Other defendants in similar cases would be given a suspended sentence or a maximum of six years in prison.
