WNBA star Brittney Griner back in U.S. following high-profile Russia jailing, prisoner swap | 24CA News
Brittney Griner disembarked from a aircraft in Texas early Friday, practically 10 months after the basketball star was detained in Russia and have become essentially the most high-profile American jailed overseas.
Griner was exchanged for infamous arms seller Viktor Bout. The aircraft carrying her touched down at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
The deal achieved a high objective for U.S. President Joe Biden — however didn’t win freedom for an additional American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for practically 4 years.
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 current decision of her felony case on drug costs and her subsequent switch to a penal colony.
Griner, who additionally performed professional basketball in Russia, was arrested at an airport there after Russian authorities mentioned 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.
Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medallist and Phoenix Mercury professional basketball star. Her standing as an brazenly homosexual Black girl, 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.
U.S. officers mentioned she could be supplied specialised medical providers and counselling.
Bout had been in custody for practically 15 years
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 court docket that she possessed canisters with hashish oil however mentioned she had no felony intent and she or he unintentionally packed them. Her defence group introduced written statements that she had been prescribed hashish to deal with ache.
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 costs that he conspired to promote tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in weapons that U.S officers mentioned have been for use in opposition to Americans.
WATCH | U.S. Secretary of State clarify rationale for determination:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre each said that there was by no means an choice to incorporate Paul Whelan with Brittney Griner when discussing the prisoner swap with Russia.
Bout was again residence in Russia on Friday, his spouse confirmed to Reuters.
U.S. officers together with Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned the person-for-person alternate was the one deal on the desk, leaving Michigan resident Paul Whelan nonetheless imprisoned in Russia. The Ottawa-born Whelan, who holds American, Canadian and Irish citizenship, was convicted on espionage costs he denies.
