The Phoenix Mercury star and Houston native was additionally ordered to stay in custody during her felony trial.
MOSCOW, Russia — More than 4 months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport for hashish possession, the felony trial of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner began Friday in a Russian courtroom.
Earlier this week, the Phoenix Mercury star was additionally ordered to stay in custody during her felony trial.
The trial began round midday, which is about 4 a.m. Houston time.
She may face 10 years in jail if convicted on fees of large-scale transportation of medicine. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian felony circumstances are acquitted, and in contrast to in the U.S., acquittals could be overturned.
Her spouse Cherelle mentioned in a TV interview Thursday night time, that she hasn’t been ready to discuss to Brittney, however that by letters she expressed how she’s struggling and terrified.
On Monday, the courtroom in the Moscow suburb of Khimki prolonged Griner’s detention for one more six months after she appeared for a preliminary listening to held behind closed doorways.
Photos obtained by the AP confirmed her showing in handcuffs. Griner had beforehand been ordered to stay in pretrial detention till July 2.
Griner’s detention and trial come at a very low level in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport lower than every week earlier than Russia despatched troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia’s denunciation of U.S. weapon provides to Ukraine.
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Amid the tensions, Griner’s supporters had taken a low profile in hopes of a quiet decision, till May, when the State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and shifted oversight of her case to its particular presidential envoy for hostage affairs — successfully the U.S. authorities’s chief negotiator.
That transfer has drawn extra consideration to Griner’s case, with supporters encouraging a prisoner swap just like the one in April that introduced residence Marine veteran Trevor Reed in trade for a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy.
Russian news media have repeatedly raised hypothesis that she might be swapped for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed “The Merchant of Death,” who’s serving a 25-year sentence on conviction of conspiracy to kill U.S. residents and offering assist to a terrorist group.
Russia has agitated for Bout’s launch for years. But the discrepancy between Griner’s case — she allegedly was discovered in possession of vape cartridges containing hashish oil — and Bout’s world dealings in lethal weapons may make such a swap unpalatable to the U.S.
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Others have steered that she might be traded in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and safety director serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a set-up.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, requested Sunday on CNN whether or not a joint swap of Griner and Whelan for Bout was being thought-about, sidestepped the query.
“As a general proposition … I have got no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,” he mentioned. But “I can’t comment in any detail on what we’re doing, except to say this is an absolute priority.”
Any swap would apparently require Griner to first be convicted and sentenced, then apply for a presidential pardon, Maria Yarmush, a lawyer specializing in worldwide civil affairs, instructed Kremlin-funded TV channel RT.
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