Chris Lange, FISM News
U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner has been transferred from the detention center where she had been held for more than a year to an undisclosed Russian labor camp, her lawyers announced on Wednesday.
Griner, 32, was sentenced on Aug. 4 to nine years in a Russian penal colony on charges of drug possession and drug smuggling after vaping cartridges containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage at an airport in Moscow.
Griner’s attorneys Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov said in a statement that, in accordance with Russia’s standard procedure, they expect to be notified concerning their client’s whereabouts within a two-week time frame.
A Moscow regional court last month denied Griner’s appeal of her sentence, though she was given a one-year credit for time served.
The Biden administration in late July proposed a prisoner swap with Russia to secure Griner’s release, as well as that of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. To date, Moscow has not accepted the offer.
“Every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too long,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the Biden administration “continues to work tirelessly to secure her release.”
Jean-Pierre reiterated the U.S. government had made a “significant offer” to Russia to secure releases for Griner and Whelan, to which she said Russia responded with “a lack of good-faith negotiation.” She added that the U.S. has continued to “follow up on that offer and propose alternative potential ways forward with the Russians through all available channels.”
In the meantime, Jean-Pierre said that President Biden “has directed the administration to prevail on [Griner’s] Russian captors to improve her treatment and the conditions she may be forced to endure in a penal colony.”