a On Tuesday, a Russian court upheld the nine-year prison sentence for the American basketball star Britney Greiner For drug possession, his appeal was refused.
Greiner, an eight-star center with WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted August 4 after police said they found vape packets containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
The Moscow District Court ruled on Tuesday upholding the ruling. However, the court stated in the ruling that Greiner’s time in prison will be recalculated taking her time in pretrial detention into account. One day in pretrial detention will count as 1.5 days in prison, so the basketball star would have to spend about eight years in prison.
Share in Moscow Regional Court Hearing via video call from the criminal colony outside Moscow where she was imprisoned.
Grenier’s arrest in February came at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington, just days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At the time, Greiner was returning to Russia, where she played in the MLS off-season.
Greiner admitted that she had the packages in her luggage, but testified that she had inadvertently packed them hastily and had no criminal intent. Her defense team provided written statements that said she had prescribed cannabis to treat pain.
The nine-year prison sentence was close to the maximum of 10 years, and Grenier’s lawyers argued after the conviction that the sentence was excessive. They said defendants in similar cases received an average sentence of about five years, with about a third granted a conditional pardon.
Prior to her conviction, the US State Department declared Greiner to be “unjustly detained” – a charge that Russia vehemently rejected.
Reflecting increasing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to bring Grener home, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken took the unusual step of publicly revealing in July that Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to bring Grener home, along with Paul Whelan, a serving American He was imprisoned for 16 years in Russia for espionage.
Blinken did not go into details, but the Associated Press and other news organizations reported that Washington had offered to exchange Greiner and Whelan for Victor Pota Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States and once earning the nickname “Dealer of Death”.
The White House said it had not yet received a fruitful response from Russia to the offer
Russian diplomats declined to comment on the US proposal, urging Washington to discuss the matter in secret talks and to avoid public statements.
in September, US President Joe Biden He met Cheryl Greiner, wife of Britney Greiner as well as the player’s agent, Lindsey Colas. Biden also sat separately with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan’s sister.
After the meetings, the White House said the president assured the families of his “continued commitment to work through all available avenues to bring Britney and Paul home safely.”
The United States and Russia conducted a prisoner exchange in April. Moscow has released veteran US Marine Trevor Reed in exchange for the United States’ release of Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was convicted of a drug smuggling plot.
Biden meets families of Britney Greiner and Paul Whelan
Moscow also lobbied for the release of other Russians held by the United States.
One of them is Alexander Vinnik, who was accused of laundering billions of dollars through an illegal cryptocurrency exchange. Vinic was arrested in Greece in 2017 and extradited to the United States in August.
Vinic’s French lawyer, Frederic Bellothe told Russia’s Izvestia newspaper last month that his client hopes to be part of a potential exchange deal.
The newspaper speculated that the other possible candidate is Roman Seleznev, the son of a Russian lawmaker. In 2017, he was sentenced to 27 years in prison for hacking and credit card fraud.
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