Lawyers appeal Brittney Griner’s Russian prison sentence

MOSCOW — Attorneys for American basketball star Brittney Griner on Monday filed an attraction in opposition to her nine-year Russian jail sentence for drug possession, Russian information companies reported Monday.

Griner, a middle for the Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted on Aug. 4. She was arrested in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after vape canisters containing hashish oil have been present in her baggage.

Griner performed for a ladies’s basketball crew in Yekaterinburg through the WNBA offseason.

Lawyer Maria Blagovolina was quoted by Russian information companies on Monday as saying the attraction was filed, however the grounds of the attraction weren’t instantly clear.

Blagovolina and co-counsel Alexander Boykov mentioned after the conviction that the sentence was extreme and that in comparable instances defendants have obtained a median sentence of about 5 years, with a few third of them granted parole.

Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her baggage, however mentioned she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no felony intent. Her protection crew introduced written statements that she had been prescribed hashish to deal with ache.

Earlier than her conviction, the U.S. State Division declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the bizarre step of unveiling publicly in July that the U.S. had made a “substantial proposal” to get Griner residence residence, together with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage.

Blinken did not elaborate, however The Related Press and different information organizations have reported that Washington has supplied to free Viktor Bout, a Russian arms seller who’s serving a 25-year sentence within the U.S. and as soon as earned the nickname the “Service provider of Loss of life.”

On Sunday, a senior Russian diplomat mentioned change talks have been performed.

“This fairly delicate concern of the swap of convicted Russian and U.S. residents is being mentioned by way of the channels outlined by our presidents,” Alexander Darchiev, head of the Overseas Ministry’s North America division, informed state information company Tass. “These people are, certainly, being mentioned. The Russian aspect has lengthy been in search of the discharge of Viktor Bout. The main points ought to be left to professionals, continuing from the ‘don’t hurt’ precept.’”