WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, waits for the verdict before a court hearing in Khimki outside Moscow, on Aug. 4, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina | AFP | Getty Images
American basketball player Brittney Griner, jailed in Russia in what the United States calls a wrongful detention, is being moved to a penal colony, her attorneys said Wednesday.
“We do not have any information on her exact current location or her final destination,” her attorneys, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, said in a statement.
Griner, a center for the Phoenix Mercury WNBA team, was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February, after Russian authorities said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage.
The 32-year-old was sentenced to nine years in prison in August, and that sentence was upheld by a Russian court in October after Griner’s lawyers appealed.
U.S. officials consider Griner to be unlawfully detained. National security adviser Jake Sullivan has characterized the court proceedings as a sham.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the government is continuing to work for her release.
“Every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too long,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement Wednesday.
Griner’s legal team said that she was moved from a detention center in Iksha, north of Moscow, on Friday.
Standard Russian procedure is that her attorneys and the U.S. embassy should be notified when Griner reaches her destination, the lawyers said — but that is done through mail and can take two weeks.
Griner pleaded guilty in July, but said that she’d packed hurriedly for a flight and brought the canisters to Russia unintentionally.
Griner treated injuries with medical cannabis, her attorneys argued at the trial. Cannabis, whether for medical or recreational purposes, is illegal in Russia. In the United States, cannabis is legal for medical purposes in most states.
“Our primary concern continues to be BG’s health and well-being,” Griner’s agent, Lindsay Colas, said in Wednesday’s statement. “As we work through this very difficult phase of not knowing exactly where BG is or how she is doing, we ask for the public’s support in continuing to write letters and express their love and care for her.”
Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and seven-time WNBA all-star. She had been in Russia to play with a Russian Premier League women’s team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, which she has done since 2014.
She was detained in February, about a week before Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which has further strained issues between Russia and the U.S.
The U.S. has proposed an exchange for Griner and another American jailed in Russia, Paul Whelan, in exchange for a convicted Russian arms dealer imprisoned in the U.S., Viktor Bout, sources have told NBC News.
Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that the U.S. “made a significant offer to the Russians to resolve the current unacceptable and wrongful detentions of American citizens.”
“In the subsequent weeks, despite a lack of good faith negotiation by the Russians, the U.S. Government has continued to follow up on that offer and propose alternative potential ways forward with the Russians through all available channels,” she said.
