WNBA star Brittney Griner returns to U.S. after prisoner swap with Russia – National | 24CA News

American basketball star Brittney Griner returned to the United States early Friday after being freed in a high-profile prisoner alternate following practically 10 months in detention in Russia.

The deal, which noticed her swapped for infamous arms vendor Viktor Bout, secured the discharge of probably the most outstanding American detained overseas and achieved a prime aim for President Joe Biden. But the U.S. didn’t win freedom for one more American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for practically 4 years.

Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, Baylor University All-American and Phoenix Mercury professional basketball star. Her standing as an overtly homosexual Black lady, locked up in a rustic the place authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ group, injected racial, gender and social dynamics into her authorized saga and introduced unprecedented consideration to the inhabitants of wrongful detainees.

Biden’s authorization to launch Bout, the Russian felon as soon as nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” underscored the heightened urgency that his administration confronted to get Griner residence, notably after the latest decision of her prison case on drug expenses and her subsequent switch to a penal colony.

Griner was seen getting off a airplane that landed Friday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.

The athlete, who additionally performed professional basketball in Russia, was arrested at an airport there in February after Russian authorities stated she was carrying vape canisters with hashish oil. Before her conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” – a cost that Russia has sharply rejected.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday’s swap, saying in a press release carried by Russian news companies that the alternate happened in Abu Dhabi and Bout had been flown residence.

Biden spoke by cellphone with Griner. U.S. officers stated she could be provided specialised medical companies and counseling.

In releasing Bout, the U.S. freed a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department as soon as described as one of many world’s most prolific arms sellers. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and extradited to the U.S. in 2010.

Bout was serving a 25-year sentence on expenses that he conspired to promote tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in weapons that U.S officers stated had been for use in opposition to Americans.

Following Griner’s arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February, she pleaded responsible in July however nonetheless confronted trial as a result of admitting guilt in Russia’s judicial system doesn’t robotically finish a case.

She acknowledged in courtroom that she possessed canisters with hashish oil however stated she had no prison intent and she or he by accident packed them. Her protection staff introduced written statements that she had been prescribed hashish to deal with ache.

1:19
Brittney Griner launched in prisoner swap with Russia, Biden says

— Tucker reported from Washington.

&copy 2022 The Canadian Press