US accuses Russia of ‘unjustly’ detaining women’s basketball star

The State Department of USA affirmed this Tuesday that he “determined” that the basketball player Brittney GrinerWNBA star, is “wrongly detained” in Russia since February, hardening the tone with respect to previous communications on the case.

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This was stated to Efe by a spokesman for the State Department, who requested anonymity, when commenting on the situation of Griner, detained in February at a Russian airport and accused of having cartridges with hashish oil for vaping in her luggage.

“The State Department has determined that the Russian Federation has wrongfully detained United States citizen Brittney Griner,” the official said.

This acknowledgment suggests that the US will now actively negotiate his return rather than wait for his case to progress through the Russian judicial system.

The official also indicated that the US government “will continue to offer appropriate support to Griner and his family.”

The newspaper The New York Times assured that the Russian authorities had opened a case for “large-scale drug transport”, which could carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

For its part, the Russian agency TASS stated at the end of March that a Moscow court had extended Griner’s arrest until at least May 19.

Griner, 31, was arrested in February, although news of her arrest did not break until March 5.

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His arrest came shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched on February 25, highly criticized by the US and the international community, and which led to the imposition of harsh sanctions on Moscow.

Since then diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow are practically broken.

However, last week, in a rare gesture of rapprochement, Russia released the American Trevor Reed, who had been detained since 2019, in exchange for the release by the US of a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking.

Griner is a player for the Phoenix Mercury, with whom she won the WNBA in 2014.

Regarded as one of the most dominant centers in the league, Griner is a seven-time WNBA All-Star and also has two Olympic gold medals with the US team.

Like other American players, Griner took advantage of the months when there is no WNBA competition to play in Russia, where her salary at UMMC Ekaterinburg (more than a million dollars per season) is four times the maximum that can be received. by agreement in the WNBA (228,094 dollars as a cap for this course).

Source: Elcomercio

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