Detention of WNBA’S Griner in Moscow extended by 1 month

MOSCOW — WNBA star Brittney

Griner had her pretrial detention in Russia extended by one month Friday, her lawyer said.

Alexander Boykov told The Associated Press he thinks the relatively short extension indicated that Griner’s case would go to trial soon. The 31-year-old American basketball player has been in custody for nearly three months.

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, was detained at a Moscow

airport in February after vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis were

allegedly found in her luggage. She faces drug smuggling charges that carry a

maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Griner appeared for the brief hearing at a court outside Moscow

handcuffed, wearing an orange hoodie and holding her face down.

She did not express “any complaints about the detention conditions,” Boykov said.

The Biden administration says Griner is

being wrongfully detained. The WNBA

and U.S. officials have worked toward her release, without visible progress.

“Today’s news on Brittney Griner was

not unexpected, and the WNBA continues to work with the U.S. government to get BG home safely and as

soon as possible,” the basketball league said in a statement.

State Dept spokesman Ned Price said diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow spoke with Griner on Friday and reported she “is doing

as well as can be expected in these circumstances.”

Russian officials have described Griner’s case as a criminal offense without making any political associations. But Moscow’s war in Ukraine

has brought U.s.-russia relations to the lowest level since the Cold War.

Despite the strain, Russia and the United

States carried out an unexpected prisoner

exchange last month — trading former Marine Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot

serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to

smuggle cocaine into the United States.

While the U.S. does not typically embrace

such exchanges, it made the deal in part

because Yaroshenko had already served a

long portion of his sentence.

The Russians may consider Griner someone who could figure into another such exchange.

The State Department last week said it

now regards Griner as wrongfully detained,

a change in classification that suggests the U.S. government will

be more active in trying to secure her release even while the legal case plays out.

The status change places her case under the purview of the department’s Special Presidential Envoy for

Hostage Affairs, which is responsible for negotiating for the release of hostages and Americans considered wrongfully detained.

Also working on the case now is a center led by Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who helped

secure the release of multiple hostages and detainees, including Reed.

It’s not entirely clear why the U.S. government, which for weeks

had been more circumspect in its approach, reclassified Griner as a wrongful

detainee. But under federal law, there are a

number of factors that go into such a characterization, including if the detention is based on being an American or if the detainee has

been denied due process

Besides Griner, another American regarded as unjustly detained in Russia is Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Whelan was arrested in December 2018 while visiting for a friend’s wedding and was later

sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage-related charges his family has said are

bogus.