Brittney Griner Case: WNBA Star to Be Sent to Penal Colony in Russia Notorious for 'Abuses' for at Least 8 Years

WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner will now serve nine years in a penal colony in Russia after a Moscow regional court denied her appeal.

Last February, Griner was arrested at a Russian airport after officials "discovered" that her vape pens contained cannabis oil. The WNBA's Phoenix Mercury star was charged with drug smuggling and sentenced to nine years in prison. Her lawyers tried to appeal the ruling.

According to Wall Street Journal, Tuesday's court hearing on Griner's appeal had the option to leave the verdict as it is, reduce the sentence, or overrule it and return it to the lower court, where the case was first heard.

However, the court upheld the drug conviction of Griner, paving the way for the U.S. women's basketball star to serve nine years in a penal colony.

The Wall Street Journal reported that this decision further complicates the diplomatic negotiations between the U.S. and Russia, which already have strained relations over Russia's invasion of Ukraine as Russia resisted discussing the deal that the Americans have offered.

Griner's best chance of coming home now rests on a prisoner swap that the Biden administration proposed back in June. However, according to the New York Times, the Kremlin has repeatedly said that until the judicial process has run its course, discussions on a deal were still premature.

As part of the decision, the court's three-judge panel ruled that every day Brittney Griner spent in pretrial detention would count as one-and-a-half days served at the penal colony. However, the rest of the sentence remains unchanged.

Elizabeth Rood, Charge d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, decried the ruling and reiterated that the U.S. government still considers her to be wrongfully detained.

WNBA Star Brittney Griner to Stay in a Penal Colony in Russia

Since her imprisonment, Brittney Griner has been seen to have lost some weight. But now that she was about to be detained in a Russian penal colony, the worst has yet to come for her.

According to Vice News, "Russian penal colonies have a reputation for being some of the worst prison systems on their side of the globe."

These prisons have become infamous for their poor treatment of prisoners, based on the firsthand accounts from high-profile anti-government activists like lawyer Alexei Navalny and Pussy Riot frontwoman Nadezhda Tolokonnikova.

Toloknnikova said she endured 16-hour days working in sewing shops on broken machines for pennies a month. She also described grossly underequipped "hygiene rooms" that are often useless due to faulty plumbing.

Both Toloknnikova and Navalny spoke of rampant corruption and violence from guards and prisoners in these prisons, which are rife with human rights abuses.

WNBA Commissioner Says Court Decision on Britney Griner Is 'Unimaginable'

In a statement released following the Russian court's decision to reject the WNBA star's appeal for reduced punishment, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said: "Today's decision while unfortunate, was not unexpected and Brittney Griner remains wrongly detained."

Engelbert noted that Griner's situation remains "unimaginable," adding that the longer she is detained in Russia, the more mentally taxing it would become.

The WNBA commissioner also told Yahoo! Finance that the league has been speaking to the State Department, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, and "everybody" in the Biden administration, and they told her that "they're all Brittney all the time," and "they're trying to find every different way to get her home safely and as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, the White House called the decision "another sham judicial proceeding." White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement that President Joe Biden has been very clear that Brittney Griner should be released immediately.

In recent weeks, Sullivan noted that the Biden administration has continued to engage with Russia "through every available channel" and make every effort to bring home the WNBA star and "fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan."

Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan, was arrested in Russia in 2018 and was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison on espionage charges, which he denies.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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