Brittney Griner, an American basketball star imprisoned in Moscow since days before the Ukraine war last February, has pleaded guilty to drug possession and smuggling at her trial in Russia.
The elite athlete, who has used a translator during the Khimki Court session, has admitted all the charges, although she has indicated that she did not intend to commit a crime, according to the Interfax agency.
Griner has explained the presence of cannabis oil in his luggage by the haste with which he packed his bags to travel to Russia. The next hearing of the trial, in which the sentence is expected, will be held on July 14.
In Thursday’s session, the court took statements from two witnesses for the prosecution who participated in the search of the athlete’s belongings at Russian customs.
On the other hand, the charge d’affaires of the US embassy. in Russia, Elizabeth Rood, has given the basketball player a letter from US President Joe Biden, according to what she told the press.
“I managed to talk to Mrs. Griner in the courtroom. She told me that she is eating well, she has the ability to read books, and she has assured me that, considering the circumstances, everything is going well for her. The most important thing is that we have managed to deliver a letter from President Biden to Mrs. Griner and she has been able to read that letter,” they said from the US embassy.
The US president telephoned Griner’s family on Wednesday, after receiving numerous criticisms for not having responded earlier to a letter that the athlete sent him on Monday.
According to the White House, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone with Griner’s wife, Cherelle, to assure her that they are working to free his wife as soon as possible, as well as other Americans “wrongfully” arrested in Russia. Biden also read Cherelle the draft of the letter that she wrote to Griner.
For its part, Moscow accuses Washington of creating media noise around this case and has pointed out that this does not help negotiations between the two countries for an exchange of prisoners.
“We have established negotiation mechanisms for these issues for a long time. We understand the attempts of the US side to stir up this situation, to make noise in the public space, but they do not help the practical solution of this matter”, declared the deputy foreign minister Russian, Sergei Riabkov.
The senior Russian diplomatic representative has recalled that the process against Griner has not concluded and as long as there is no verdict from a court, “there is no formal basis” to talk about the next steps.
According to Riabkov, the persistence with which the US describes its citizens convicted or prosecuted in Russia as ‘detained persons’, “reflects Washington’s lack of desire to face reality in an adequate way.”
“It is quite difficult to engage in a detailed negotiation of any type of exchange between prisoners from both countries in the context of so many accusations, media and network noise created by the United States,” he added.
The Russian deputy foreign minister has stressed that what will really help Griner is not the communications of the US president, Joe Biden, with his relatives, “but serious attention by the US to the signals they receive from Russia, from Moscow, through specialized channels”.
The 31-year-old athlete, double world and Olympic champion with her country, was arrested in February at the Sheremétevo airport in Moscow after customs officials found cannabis oil among her belongings. Subsequently, the basketball player was arrested for drug possession and smuggling and has been in preventive detention ever since.
Previously, it was learned that Russia and the United States are negotiating the exchange of the player for the Russian arms dealer Viktor But, known as the “merchant of death” and who is serving a sentence in a US prison.
But is serving 25 years in prison for, among other things, conspiring to kill US citizens and selling weapons to Colombia’s former FARC guerrilla organization.
Recently, Russia and the United States have already exchanged the American student Trevor Reed, sentenced to nine years in prison for resisting arrest, for the Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, sentenced on US soil to 20 years for drug smuggling.
