American basketball player Brittney Griner was released by Russia on Thursday (8) after an agreement between Moscow and the United States, which agreed to carry out a prisoner exchange. Griner had been detained in Russia since February on allegations of possession of hashish.
The American counterpart was the release of drug lord Viktor Bout. Known as the “Dealer of Death,” Bout was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, in a US Drug Enforcement Administration raid in 2008, and extradited to New York in 2010. Serving a 25-year prison sentence, he became famous for inspiring the film “Lord of Arms” starring Nicolas Cage.
US President Joe Biden wrote on the social network that he spoke early this morning with the basketball player, who is already on a plane on her way home.
Griner was arrested on February 17 at Sheremetievo International Airport, near Moscow, accused of carrying cartridges of hashish oil – a substance derived from cannabis that is illegal in Russia -, to be used in an electronic cigarette.
The already difficult case gained another dimension a week later, when Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. In the weeks that followed, Biden called the Russian a war criminal, Moscow claimed the US promotes banditry, and relations between the two countries collapsed.
Griner was in Russia to play in the country’s women’s basketball league for the sport’s off-season in the US — something female players often do to supplement income, given the lower salaries compared to the men’s game. She was active for the UMMC in Yekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains region, closer to Kazakhstan than eastern Europe.
In the US, Griner is signed to the Phoenix Mercury. At 31 years old and 2.06 meters tall, she is considered one of the stars of basketball in the country since the college league, when she defended at Baylor University. The two-time Olympic champion (Rio-2016 and Tokyo-2020), in the protests against the death of George Floyd in 2020, joined the group of athletes who demonstrated against the fact that the American anthem played before the games.
Shortly after being arrested, Griner pleaded guilty before a Russian court for bringing the hashish oil into the country, but has always maintained that she did not do it on purpose. She said she didn’t know how the substance ended up in her luggage and that this could have happened because she had packed her bags in a hurry. She has a prescription to use medical marijuana in the US to treat chronic pain. The defense argued, in the lawsuit, that this is common among elite athletes.
The offer to trade Griner for the Russian criminal provoked internal debate, which heated up after the offer to release the arms dealer. Former Republican President Donald Trump, accused by opponents of playing into Putin’s US political game, condemned efforts to free the player, whom he called spoiled.
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