A Russian Court rejected Brittney Griner’s appeal of her nine-year prison sentence for drug smuggling on Tuesday.
The Moscow court’s three-judge panel voted to uphold the two-time Olympian’s sentence but ruled that each day Griner spends in pretrial detention would count for one-and-a-half days served. Still, “the rest of the sentence is unchanged,” the judges said.
That means Griner will serve around eight years in prison unless the U.S. and Russia can agree to a prisoner swap in the future.
U.S. officials criticized the decision, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan released a statement after the sentence was upheld.
“We are aware of the news out of Russia that Brittney Griner will continue to be wrongfully detained under intolerable circumstances after having to undergo another sham judicial proceeding today. President Biden has been very clear that Brittney should be released immediately,” the statement read.
Griner’s best hopes of returning to America seemingly would be through a negotiated prisoner swap between the two countries, but the process is complicated.
National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said in September that Russia had not responded to the “substantial proposal” the U.S. offered in July, a deal that includes former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was given a 16-year sentence for espionage in 2020.
“We want them to accept it, frankly, these two individuals ought to be home anyway, period,” Kirby said. “But we understand that that’s probably going to have to be the result of the negotiating process, one that we’re willing to participate in honestly and fully, and we’ve been doing that. And we await them to take the offer that’s on the table.”
Reports suggest the U.S. has offered Viktor Bout, a Russian convicted of U.S. charges of arms dealing who has served nearly 14 years in prison, in exchange for Griner and Whelan.
Griner’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, said before the appeal hearing that the WNBA star was “not expecting any miracles.” Still, the lawyers expressed disappointment over the judge’s ruling after the hearing.
“The verdict contains numerous defects and we hoped that the court of appeal would take them into consideration,” they said. “We still think the punishment is excessive and contradicts the existing court practice.”
The lawyers suggested that Griner’s biggest fear is that a prisoner swap will not happen, meaning she will have to serve the whole sentence in Russia.
Griner was “the one who is the most disappointed today. She had some hopes and this hope has vanished today,” Blagovolina said.
Griner was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow on February 17 after Russian authorities alleged she had vape cartridges with less than a gram of cannabis oil inside her luggage.
Griner participated in the court proceedings Tuesday through a video. The judge read out the charges to her, saying she had a significant amount of drugs in her possession, a total of 0.702 grams of hashish oil.
Griner appealed to the court to reassess her sentence to consider that she lacked intent. During the trial, the WNBA star and her lawyers argued that she mistakenly packed the cartridges that were medically prescribed to her.
“This has been a very traumatic experience, waiting for this day … getting nine years for the crime,” she said. “People with more severe crimes have gotten less than what I was given.”
Griner apologized for what she called a mistake.
“I did not intend to do this, but I understand the charges brought against me and I just hope that that is taken into account too, that I did plead guilty,” she said.
