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Russia frees US basketball player Brittney Griner in prisoner swap

2022-12-08T14:28:21.169Z


The United States hands over arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for the player American professional basketball star Brittney Griner has been released from his sentence in Russia in a prisoner swap for US-convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the US and Russian governments have announced. Griner was sentenced last August to nine years in prison for drug trafficking after being detained months earlier by police with cannabis cartridges in her possession that she was carr


American professional basketball star Brittney Griner has been released from his sentence in Russia in a prisoner swap for US-convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the US and Russian governments have announced.

Griner was sentenced last August to nine years in prison for drug trafficking after being detained months earlier by police with cannabis cartridges in her possession that she was carrying for personal use.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has given the go-ahead to the operation, which took place in the United Arab Emirates, despite the fact that it meant leaving Paul Whelan out of the agreement.

Washington initially hoped to include in the agreement Whelan, a security executive from a US company who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 on charges of espionage and who remains imprisoned in Russia.

Brittney Griner's wife, Cherelle Griner, has been in the Oval Office of the White House with Biden and both have been able to speak with the player on the phone.

President Biden has appeared this Thursday to talk about the release.

"She is safe, she is on a plane and she is on her way home after months unjustly detained in Russia in intolerable circumstances," he said, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris;

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Griner's wife.

“This is a day we have worked for a long time.

We have never stopped pressing for his release.

Thorough and intense negotiations have been necessary, and I want to thank all the officials in my administration who have worked tirelessly to secure his release.

I also want to thank the United Arab Emirates for helping us facilitate Brittany's return, because that is where she landed,” she added.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced for its part that the exchange "was completed successfully at Abu Dhabi airport", the capital of the Emirates.

Moscow has stressed that it has negotiated "for a long time" with its US counterpart, and has attributed its success.

“Washington categorically refused to have a dialogue on the inclusion of the Russian in the exchange scheme.

However, the Russian Federation continued to work actively to rescue our compatriot," the ministry said.

Griner's arrest, made public after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, had political overtones from the start.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have been negotiating a possible exchange for months.

The United States offered to hand over Bout in June, but asked in return that Russia hand over not only Griner but also Whelan.

Russia closed in on the band and only admitted the exchange of the athlete for Bout.

“We will continue to negotiate in good faith for the release of Paul Whelan, I guarantee it,” Biden said.

In good mood

Biden has assured that Griner is "in a good mood and relieved to finally return home."

She “she has wasted months of her life and lived through unnecessary trauma.

She deserves space, privacy and time with her loved ones to recover," she said.

“Griner wrote to me in July.

She did not ask for special treatment.

Although we have been working on her release since day one, she asked for one simple thing: 'Please, she doesn't forget about me and the other American detainees.

Please do everything you can to bring us home.'

We never forget about Brittany.

We are not forgetting Paul Whelan, unjustly detained in Russia for years, ”added the president, who has made the release of US prisoners detained or sentenced abroad one of his foreign policy priorities.

Griner became the star of the Phoenix Mercury since he joined the team in 2013. Since 2018, he has also played for UMMC Ekaterinburg in the Russian first division, taking advantage of the season break in the WNBA, the American women's professional league.

During the trial, the basketball player assured that she did not intend to violate the law.

She pleaded guilty, explaining that it was an “unintentional mistake” that she made while she was stressed trying to recover from covid.

Since the Cold War, prisoner swapping, formerly focused on spies, has been a frequent practice between Washington and Moscow.

The harsh sentences that Russian courts hand down against foreigners support this practice.

The last barter before the one announced this Thursday occurred in 2020, with the delivery of the American Trevor Reed, a Marine veteran sentenced to nine years for violence against a police officer, in exchange for a Russian pilot who was serving a sentence in the United States.

The exchange for Bout, 55, may generate controversy.

He is not just any Russian prisoner.

The

merchant of death

is a trafficker convicted of providing weapons to terrorist organizations.

He was sentenced in 2012 to 25 years.

His figure inspired the film

The Lord of War,

starring Nicolas Cage.

His capture took years of work for the US authorities.

He was detained in Thailand by the DEA, the US drug enforcement agency, and his extradition took two and a half years.

Freeing him would be a bitter pill for the United States.

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Source: elparis

All sports articles on 2022-12-08

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