Griner tells Russian court her rights weren’t explained when she was detained
By Ivan Nechepurenko and Carly Olson
Brittney Griner, the American basketball star detained in Russia on drug charges, told a court Wednesday that she had been tossed into a bewildering legal system with little explanation of what was happening and what she might do to try to defend herself.
It was Griner’s first court testimony about her arrest, in a case that has turned her into an unlikely pawn in a diplomatic tussle between Russia and the United States as the war in Ukraine has created the deepest rift between the two nuclear powers since the end of the Cold War.
Griner described arriving in Russia after an exhausting 13-hour flight — and soon after recovering from COVID-19 — and finding herself in an interrogation in which much of what was being said remained untranslated. She said she was also told to sign papers with no explanation of what they were.
When she arrived in the court wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt, Griner had her wrists shackled in front of her, and she was flanked by a coterie of Russian security agents, including some wearing bulletproof vests, their faces covered by balaclavas.
The tense atmosphere at the courthouse reflected the fraught geopolitical moment. Washington continues to send weapons to the Ukrainian military and has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia, and even the decadeslong partnership in space appeared to be ending as Moscow announced Tuesday that it would leave the International Space Station after its current commitment expires at the end of 2024
Russian authorities detained Griner, 31, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, about a week before President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February. She was accused of having two vape cartridges of hashish oil in her luggage when she arrived at an airport near Moscow. Russia did not make her detention public until after the invasion began.
Griner had been traveling to Russia to play with a team in Yekaterinburg, about 900 miles east of Moscow, during the WNBA offseason. She was charged with willfully smuggling the vape cartridges, violating Russian drug laws.
She now faces a possible 10-year sentence. The verdict is expected in August, her lawyers say.
In court Wednesday, Griner, testifying from an enclosed witness box, said she had been planning to travel onward to Yekaterinburg but was pulled aside during a luggage check in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, according to reporters from Reuters and The Associated Press who were in the courtroom. Two cartridges containing hashish oil were found in her bags.
Griner testified Wednesday that she had been told to sign documents during her detention without an explanation of what they meant.
Griner also “explained to the court that she knows and respects Russian laws and never intended to break them,” Maria Blagovolina, a partner at the Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners law firm who is representing the basketball player, said in a statement after the hearing.
“Brittney confirmed that she had a doctor’s prescription for the use of medical cannabis, and that in the USA medical cannabis is quite a popular treatment among professional athletes,” Blagovolina said. “She emphasized that never planned to bring it to Russia and use it.”
Griner also told the court that “Ekaterinburg became her second home, and she has always been enjoying her time in Russia,” the attorney said.
Before the testimony, Griner’s legal team asked the judge to allow the basketball player to testify outside the enclosed witness box because of her height. The judge, Anna Sotnikova, refused the request but allowed Griner to testify while seated, according to TASS, a Russian state news agency.
Griner pleaded guilty in the case this month, saying that she had made a mistake and unintentionally carried a banned substance into Russia because she had packed in a hurry. In the Russian justice system, trials are conducted even when defendants plead guilty. Griner’s attorneys have said they hope her plea will make the court more lenient.
Experts say that her best hope is that the Biden administration finds a way to swap her for a high-profile Russian who is being held by the United States. But the administration is reluctant to create any incentive for the arrest or abduction of Americans abroad.