A Russian court has rejected an appeal by U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner to have her nine-year prison sentence for the possession and smuggling of drugs reduced -- a ruling blasted by Washington as "excessive and disproportionate."
A two-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time all-star for the U.S. Women's National Basketball Association, Griner, 32, has been in Russian detention since police said they found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia, in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on February 17.
Griner was returning at the time to Russia, where she has competed since 2014. She was sentenced on August 4 to nine years in a penal colony
She addressed the appeals court on October 25 via video link from her detention cell.
The court stated in the ruling that the time Griner will have to serve in prison will be recalculated with her time in pre-trial detention taken into account. One day in pre-trial detention will be counted as 1.5 days in prison, so the basketball player will have to serve around eight years in prison.
U.S. Charge d’Affaires Elizabeth Rood, currently the most senior U.S. diplomat in Moscow, attended the hearing at a court just outside of the Russian capital. She called the nine-year sentence upheld by the appeals judges "excessive and disproportionate."
In her final statement on October 25, Griner, who has admitted in court to an "honest mistake" in packing the cartridges, described how stressful her eight-month detention and two trials had been, adding, "I was barely over the significant amount [of cannabis oil].... People with more severe crimes have gotten less than what I was given."
She apologized for her mistake, as she had at her original trial, saying, "I did not intend to do this," and asked the court to take into account the fact that she had pleaded guilty.
U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration in late July proposed a deal for a prisoner swap to secure the release of Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, said he will not let up efforts to bring them home.
"We're in constant contact with Russian authorities to get Brittney and others out. So far, we've not been meeting with much positive response, but we're not stopping," Biden told reporters on October 25.
Biden previously assigned a hostage negotiator to Griner's case. Whelan was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison on espionage charges that he denies.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on October 24 that Washington has had continuous discussions with Russia “including in recent days” but talks “have not gotten to the point where we would like them to be.”
Some reports have suggested a deal could involve jailed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, while others say the Russian side is also pressing for the handover of Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) who was convicted last year of murder in Germany in the death of an emigrant Chechen former fighter.