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RIGA, Latvia – US WNBA star Brittney Griner is scheduled to be tried on Friday on drug charges in a Moscow court after customs officials said they found vaporizer cartridges with hashish oil in the his luggage at a Moscow airport in February, a week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. .
Griner could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of possessing a “significant amount” of hashish. She has been detained since February and has been detained until December pending the outcome of her trial.
His case has been complicated by the severe decline in relations between Washington and Moscow. Griner’s supporters in the United States say he is a hostage and a political pawn.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed those allegations last week, saying drug crimes are being taken seriously in Russia and many other countries. “We can’t call her a hostage. Why should we call her a hostage?” He said.
“There are several countries that cannot be entered with drugs,” Peskov said. “It is also being prosecuted under Russian law. Russia is not the only country in the world that has strict laws in this regard.”
Griner supporters in the United States have called on President Biden to negotiate a prisoner exchange like the one in April, when Russia traded former Marine Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year sentence. jailed in Connecticut for drug trafficking. Reed had been jailed for nine years after being convicted of a life-threatening assault on police officers.
Griner is one of two Americans the State Department says are being unjustly detained by Russia. Former US Marine Paul Whelan has been in prison since December 2018, when he traveled to Moscow for a friend’s wedding and was arrested in his hotel room. He was jailed for 16 years after being convicted of spying in a closed trial. He denies the charges and describes the case as political.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that releasing illegally detained Americans like Whelan and Griner was his top priority.
“I have no other priority than to make sure that Americans who are being illegally detained one way or another around the world come home, and that includes Paul Whelan and that includes Brittney Griner,” he said. in an interview with CNN, declining. to comment on whether the U.S. government was seeking a prisoner exchange with Whelan and Griner.
Russian media have speculated that Washington could trade Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who turns 25 in the United States for conspiring to sell surface-to-air missiles to a foreign terrorist group and conspiring to kill American citizens. Bout, the inspiration for Nicholas Cage’s film “Lord of War”, allegedly smuggled weapons to warlords in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia for years, sometimes arming both sides. in a conflict, until his arrest in 2008 in Thailand and extradition to Thailand in 2010. the United States. Russia calls Bout’s arrest and conviction “illegal and political” and has demanded his release since 2008.
Everything you need to know about Brittney Griner in Russia
According to Russian customs officials, Griner was about to fly from Moscow to New York when a sniffer dog at Sheremetyevo International Airport “indicated that there were drugs in the hand luggage of a U.S. citizen.” , in reference to Griner. Customs officials said they found vaporizers in their luggage, which were then analyzed and found to contain hashish oil. The customs agency released a video of the airport search, apparently extracted from surveillance cameras.
In early May, the State Department determined that Griner was being unjustly detained and transferred oversight of his case to Roger Carstens, presidential envoy for hostage affairs. The department has not been drafted on the basis of the ruling.
State Department spokesman Ned Price then said the department weighed the circumstances of each case, “whether it’s the case of Brittney Griner, whether it’s the case of Paul Whelan, or the case of Americans. in Iran. There will be unique factors in each and every one of these cases. “
Price said Griner was “lucky to have a network that has supported him from day one,” adding that the department had worked closely with its sponsors.
About a month before the invasion of Ukraine, the State Department issued a level 4 security warning to Americans, which stipulated “not to travel” to Russia because of the risk of arbitrarily enforcing and harassing the law. by Russian officials, as well as tensions over Ukraine. He warned that State Department officials had limited capacity to help American citizens in Russia.
“Russian officials have unjustifiably delayed U.S. consular assistance to detained U.S. citizens and arrested U.S. citizens on false charges, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and sentenced them to secret and / or non-secret trials. present evidence, ”the warning read.