Photos of WNBA star Brittney Griner being shown around a courthouse outside Moscow were released this week ahead of her drug-related trial, set to begin on Friday, giving the western world a rare glimpse of her after four months in Russia .
In some photos, a handcuffed Ms. Griner looks worried. She wears a gray t-shirt and round glasses. The wrists of their long arms are tied together and then tied to a guard’s arm. Some fans described the photos as “heartbreaking”.
Few pictures of Ms Griner have been released since her arrest at an airport near Moscow on February 17, a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, and she has been examined for clues about her mental and physical health. She was arrested while going through security after officers said they found vape cartridges with traces of hash oil in her luggage. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison in a penal colony.
Her imprisonment and trial were widely viewed in the West as retaliation for American support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. Her wife, Cherelle Griner, could only communicate with Brittney Griner through letters.
After the couple couldn’t speak to each other for four months, Russian officials cleared a phone call between them for June 18, but the two couldn’t connect because the phone line at the US embassy in Russia was not busy.
“She tells me she’s fine,” Ms. Griner’s wife said in a recent radio interview with Rev. Al Sharpton. Cherelle Griner said Brittney Griner swore, “I won’t let them break me.”
But Brittney Griner is struggling, her wife said. “She’s human, she’s scared, she’s alone,” Cherelle Griner said. “It’s not just that she can’t talk to her loved ones. She can’t talk to anyone because she doesn’t speak the language. It’s inhuman on every level.”
Photos of Ms Griner released Monday were accompanied by video of Ms Griner, flanked by four police officers and a dog, walking down a hallway and then up a flight of stairs.
Despite being handcuffed, she towers over her Russian guards and moves with confidence. At one point she purses her lips and shakes her head as if in disbelief.
The pictures released Monday were the first since May 13, when an Associated Press photographer took a picture of Ms Griner exiting a courtroom in Khimki, Russia. She wore an orange sweatshirt with an Air Jordan logo on the sleeve. The hood was pulled over her bowed head so that her face was not visible. She was handcuffed and chained to a guard behind her. Two more guards surround them.
This photo prompted questions in the United States about Ms. Griner’s physical and emotional well-being.