More bad news for Brittany Griner.
the 6-9 American women’s basketball star, who was arrested in March and eventually plead guilty in a Moscow court of drug possession in July, is being moved to a penal colony to serve out the rest of what is essentially an eight year
prison sentence unless the U.S. can negotiate her release..
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has strongly protested the movement, calling it a wrongful detention and said said he was committed to bringing Griner and another detainee Paul Whelan home as quickly as possible.
Griner, 32, was accused of carrying vape cartridges with hash oil in her luggage and she traveled back to Moscow to play with her Russian profressional team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, which was paying her $1 millilon dollars to pay there during the WNBA off season.
Griner claims he had no intentent and that she had mistakenly packed the cartrdiges.
this is a bad time to be a political prisoner in Russia.
No one knows exactly where Griner is right now. She left a Moscow detention center Nov. 4 on her way to a penal colonly. Transfers can take up to several weeks. Her legal team expects to be notified when she reaches her final destination
but mail normally takes two weeks to be received.
Griner would be placed in a small windowless car with no communication with her legal team. “They disappear off the face of the earth,” David Whelman, brother of Paul Whelman, told USA Today.
Moving to a penal colony was on the schedule for Griner after she lost her appeal in October. Life in penal colonies is harsh, with prisoners performing hard larbor for mnimal pay. Griner will go to a female-only penal colony. Littlle is known about them, but there eportedly
is a lack of rgular medical care, long stretches in solidary for isolated offenses, bitterly cold and uncomfortable conditions, plank like beds and limited contact with the outside world.
None of this can be good for Griner’s Cherelle Griner mental state. Her wife is aleady saying things like Brittany told me “my life just don’t even matter no more.”
U.S. officals have spoken to Russia about a priner swap and reportedly offered mnotorious Russian Arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for Griner and Whelan..
