Breaking: Russian court upholds Brittney Griner’s verdict

The US Olympian’s lawyer said no honest judge would agree that the 9-year sentence for the crime of possession of less than a gram of cannabis oil was reasonable.

A Russian court upheld Brittney Griner’s drug smuggling conviction, paving the way for her to serve nine years in a penal colony unless the US government can negotiate an agreement on her release.

Griner’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, asked the three-judge panel in Moscow to acquit, or at least reduce, her nine-year sentence, saying it did not constitute a criminal offense of possession and smuggling of cannabis oil.

“Hand on heart, no judge will honestly say that Griner’s nine-year sentence is consistent with Russian criminal law,” Boykov told the judges.

Griner, who attended via video link from a detention center outside the capital, was allowed to make a final statement via live video link, Reuters reported.

She said how stressful her eight-month detention and two trials had been, adding: “I was barely over the substantial amount [of cannabis oil] … People with heavier crimes got less than me.”

Griner apologized again for her mistake

During her original trial in August, she said, “I had no intention of doing this,” and asked the court to consider the fact that she had pleaded guilty.

Wearing a black and red lumberjack shirt over a black hooded top, Griner took turns sitting or standing in her cell, sometimes with her head bowed, sometimes leaning against the white bars.

Prosecutors claim verdict was ‘fair’

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and center for the Phoenix Mercury, pleaded guilty in August, saying she made an “honest mistake” and had no intention of breaking the law when she mistakenly removed no less than one gram of cannabis oil from her suitcase. Griner, a legal medical marijuana patient in the US, was returning to Moscow to complete her seventh season with a Russian basketball team when she was arrested at a Moscow airport just a week before Russia invaded Ukraine.

American officials have accused Russia of using Griner and other Americans in Russian custody as a bargaining chip. Washington has said on various occasions that Griner was wrongly arrested, but has apparently offered a swap between her and former Marine Paul Whelan in exchange for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence in the US. Moscow has also indicated that it is open to a prisoner exchange. Despite the “fairly sustained” pace of talks between the US and Russia to secure the Americans’ release, a US official told CNN the Biden administration has yet to receive a serious counter-offer from the Russian side.

Recently, an adviser to Vladimir Putin said Brittney Griner is “not the main issue we’re worried about.” Although Biden said two weeks ago that he was willing to speak to Putin at next month’s Group of 20 meeting in Indonesia, but only to discuss Griner’s case.

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