Russian court upholds Brittney Griner’s 9-year sentence: live updates


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The jailed American basketball star is expected to be taken to a penal colony after a court upheld her 9-year sentence, increasing pressure on the US to negotiate her release.recognitionRecognition…Pool photo by Evgenia Novozhenina

With a Russian appeals court’s decision Tuesday to uphold Brittney Griner’s drug-smuggling conviction, the American basketball star’s best hope for freedom now likely hinges on the outcome of thorny talks between the United States and Russia, two governments whose ties are strained at their deepest stood for decades.

The Biden administration and the administration of President Vladimir V. Putin have held secret negotiations over a possible prisoner swap, and back in June the Biden administration offered an exchange involving Ms. Griner. But Kremlin officials have repeatedly said it is premature to discuss a deal until the court case has run its course.

The verdict by a three-judge panel at a court of appeals near Moscow on Tuesday means Ms Griner will soon serve a nine-year sentence in a prison colony. President Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan denounced the verdict as “another sham trial” and said US officials “continue to work with Russia through all available channels” to secure the freedom of Ms. Griner and other Americans, who they believe are unjustly imprisoned in Russia.

“The President has shown that he is willing to go to extraordinary lengths and make difficult decisions to bring Americans home,” Sullivan said.

A person briefed on the talks between Moscow and Washington this summer said the United States had proposed exchanging Ms Griner – along with Paul Whelan, a former Marine who has been held since December 2018 – for Viktor Bout, a Russian Arms dealer serving 25-year federal prison sentence on charges including conspiracy to kill Americans.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin are expected to attend a summit of Group-20 leaders in Indonesia next month, and Mr. Biden said he would only speak to the Russian leader there when it came to Ms. Griner’s case to discuss.

Bill Richardson, the former ambassador to the United Nations who has unofficially dealt with Russian officials as a private individual, said in October he was “cautiously optimistic” that Ms Griner and Mr Whelan could be swapped before the end of the year.

Recognition…Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

Ms Griner, 32, attended the trial on Tuesday via video link from the detention center where she has been held since her February 17 arrest. It could be several months before she is transferred to a prison colony to serve her sentence, her lawyers said.

There are two higher courts above the appeals division, culminating in the Supreme Court, but Ms Griner’s lawyers said they have not yet decided whether to proceed with the case.

Higher courts in Russia are not known for overturning judgments, particularly in a case involving foreign policy and the interests of the Kremlin.

Since her arrest at a Moscow airport days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Ms Griner’s fate has become tangled in the increasingly acrimonious relations between Moscow and Washington over the war. American officials have accused Russia of using Ms Griner and other US citizens in Russian custody as bargaining chips.

Ms. Griner, an all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was en route to Yekaterinburg, a city near the Ural Mountains, where she was playing for a women’s basketball team. Customs officials said they found two vape cartridges containing hash oil in her luggage.

Ms Griner admitted her guilt in court but said she had no intention of breaking the law and claimed that the small amount of hash oil turned up in her luggage due to negligence.

Since her conviction in August, her lawyers have argued that the nine-year sentence — close to the 10-year maximum for such a conviction — was too harsh for a first-time offense and was politically motivated.

“There are numerous flaws in the verdict and we hoped the Court of Appeal would consider them,” her attorneys said in a statement after her appeal was dismissed.

correction:

October 25, 2022

A previous version of this article misrepresented Brittney Griner’s age. She’s 32, not 31.