Brittney Griner’s drug-smuggling trial will proceed subsequent week
The narcotics trial of US ladies’s basketball icon Brittney Griner started in a Russian court docket on Friday earlier than being adjourned till July 7. Griner is charged with bringing unlawful cannabis oil vape cartridges into Russia when she arrived at a Moscow airport in mid-February.
Griner, 31, appeared at Khimki Metropolis Courtroom simply outdoors Moscow because the trial started, and was seen getting into the courtroom carrying glasses and a T-shirt bearing a picture of Jimi Hendrix. Together with Griner’s authorized crew, representatives from the US Embassy within the Russian capital have been additionally current.
The prosecution opened its case in opposition to Griner, who was initially detained at Sheremetyevo Airport after arriving on a flight from New York on February 17, when a sniffer canine alerted officers to her baggage and a subsequent search uncovered banned hashish oil vape cartridges.
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Quoted by TASS, prosecutors stated that “being sufficiently conscious that the motion of narcotic medication isn’t allowed… no later than February 17, 2022, at an unspecified location underneath unspecified circumstances from an unidentified particular person, [Griner] purchased two cartridges for private use, which contained zero.252 grams and zero.45 grams of hash oil, totaling zero.702 grams.”
Griner was not requested to enter a responsible or harmless plea at Friday’s proceedings, and can as a substitute achieve this at a later date. Two witnesses – each customs officers – testified on the listening to however the absence of others meant that the case was adjourned till the afternoon of subsequent Thursday, July 7, in response to RIA.
The cost d’affaires on the US Embassy in Moscow, Elizabeth Rood, instructed reporters outdoors the court docket that Griner “is doing in addition to could be anticipated in these troublesome circumstances.”
“She requested me to convey that she is in good spirits and is maintaining the religion,” Rood added.
Ought to she be discovered responsible, Griner might face between 5 and 10 years in jail.
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US officers have claimed Griner is getting used as a “political hostage” and a possible bargaining chip for a prisoner swap later down the road.
Unconfirmed stories have claimed swap deal might embody Russian businessman Viktor Bout, who’s serving a 25-year sentence in a US jail after allegations of arms dealing.
Nevertheless, the claims that Griner is a political pawn have been once more dismissed by Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday.
Peskov repeated that the Russian authorized course of should take its due course and that the Kremlin wouldn’t compromise Griner’s trial in any method.
The spokesman for President Putin has beforehand stated that Griner shouldn’t be granted particular therapy just because she is a foreigner.
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Attorneys for Griner instructed the media on Friday that they’d no data on a supposed prisoner swap, including that the basketball participant had “no complaints” about her detention circumstances.
“She is engaged in bodily training in accordance with the rules, each within the cell and for a stroll,” stated lawyer Maria Blagovolina, in response to Match TV.
Fellow lawyer Alexander Boikov added that Griner was grateful for the help she had acquired from the likes of males’s NBA icon LeBron James.
Phoenix Mercury star Griner – who’s a two-time Olympic champion and eight-time WNBA All-Star – was arriving in Russia to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg in the course of the offseason in her homeland, one thing she had finished since 2014.
Previous to her trial, Griner had her detention prolonged till December as her case performs out.
