WNBA star Brittney Griner freed from Russian prison
WNBA star Brittney Griner, who had been detained in Russia since February on drug charges, was released from custody on Thursday in a prisoner swap with the United States.
Griner, 32, was exchanged for Viktor Bout, a former Russian military officer who was serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. for conspiring to kill Americans, exporting missiles, and conspiring to help a terrorist organization. The Russian government has sought Bout’s release for a decade, since his 2012 sentencing in New York.
President Biden announces Brittney Griner is coming home
“Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones and she should have been there all along,” President Biden said at a news conference Thursday morning from the White House in the company of Griner’s wife, Cherelle.
“Today is just a happy day,” Cherelle Griner said at the news conference. She had maintained public pressure on the White House not to forget about her wife.
President Biden also spoke with Brittney Griner from the Oval Office just before making the announcement. He said she was in good spirits, but was experiencing “trauma” and would need time to heal.
What happened to Brittney Griner in Russia
Griner, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, was traveling to Russia to rejoin her professional team, UMMC Yekaterinburg, which she also played for during the WNBA off-season.
She was detained by the Russian authorities at an airport near Moscow on February 17, after she was accused of carrying hashish oil in her luggage. Hashish oil is a marijuana concentrate that has a high concentration of the psychoactive chemical THC, and it is commonly sold in cartridges that are used in vape pens.
Her arrest in February was just days before Russia invaded Ukraine as tensions between the United States and Moscow were rising.
In August, she was convicted by a Russian court on a charge of attempting to smuggle narcotics into Russia. She was sentenced to a penal colony for nine years, near the 10-year maximum.
Griner’s appeal of her conviction was denied in October, and in November she was moved to one of Russia’s most notorious penal colonies.
The U.S. government’s ‘moral obligation’
The Biden administration tried for months to strike a deal with Russia to free Griner. A person briefed on the negotiations said that in June, the United States offered to trade Bout for Griner and another American, the former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
The U.S. government has long resisted prisoner swaps out of concern that it could encourage the imprisonment of more Americans abroad. The exchange for Bout should not be interpreted as a new normal practice, but that there are times when there are no alternatives, a Biden official said.
The official said the administration felt a “moral obligation,” as well as a policy obligation, to bring people who are being held hostage or detained home.