U.S. officers met with the jailed American basketball star Brittney Griner on Thursday for the primary time since a Russian courtroom rejected her enchantment on a drug-possession conviction, and the White House mentioned she was doing “as well as can be expected.”
Ms. Griner has develop into unwillingly ensnared in a geopolitical battle between Russia and the west, and has been grappling with the choice by a Russian appeals courtroom to uphold a nine-year sentence in a penal colony on costs of drug possession. Ms. Griner, who not too long ago turned 32 in Russian custody, pleaded responsible to drug-smuggling costs and apologized for what she known as an inadvertent offense.
“We are told she is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters on Air Force One as she traveled with President Biden to New Mexico.
Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, additionally famous that the assembly had occurred, posting on Twitter that officers from the U.S. Embassy in Russia had seen Ms. Griner and “seen firsthand her tenacity and perseverance despite her present circumstances.”
.@USEmbRU officers visited Brittney Griner right this moment. They noticed firsthand her tenacity and perseverance regardless of her current circumstances. We proceed to press for the instant launch of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan and honest therapy for each detained American.
— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) November 3, 2022
In October, certainly one of Ms. Griner’s attorneys mentioned that she was more and more anxious about her possibilities of being freed in a prisoner swap and struggling emotionally. She is allowed exterior as soon as a day at a penal colony exterior Moscow, the lawyer, Alexandr D. Boykov, mentioned in a latest interview. He mentioned she walks for an hour in a small courtyard, and spends the remainder of her time in a small cell with two cellmates, sitting and sleeping on a specifically elongated mattress to accommodate her 6-foot-9 body.
Ekaterina Kalugina, a journalist who visited Ms. Griner in her cell in the springtime, mentioned in a telephone interview in October that Ms. Griner’s two cellmates on the time had been ladies who spoke English and had been additionally in jail on drug-related costs. She mentioned that Ms. Griner had been studying a translation of Dostoyevsky’s novel “Demons,” a political tragedy.
The Biden administration has been making an attempt to barter a prisoner swap with Russia to convey residence Ms. Griner and Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned on espionage costs, however with no reported breakthroughs — and extraordinary rigidity between the 2 international locations over the warfare in Ukraine — a public strain marketing campaign from athletes, led by her spouse, Cherelle Griner, has intensified.
American officers have mentioned the United States has provided to free the imprisoned Russian arms seller Viktor Bout as a part of the deal. He is serving a 25-year jail sentence for conspiring to kill Americans.
Per week earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Ms. Griner, an All-Star heart with the W.N.B.A.’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained at an airport close to Moscow after customs officers discovered two vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her baggage. She had been en path to Yekaterinburg, a metropolis close to the Ural Mountains, the place she performed for a ladies’s basketball workforce.
Ms. Jean-Pierre mentioned, in feedback livestreamed by the White House, that embassy officers in Moscow had been capable of go to Brittney Griner on Thursday.
“As we have said before, the U.S. government made a significant offer to the Russians to resolve the current unacceptable and wrongful detentions of American citizens Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan,” she mentioned.
She added, “I can also tell you that in the subsequent weeks, despite a lack of good faith negotiation by the Russians, the U.S. government has continued to follow up on that offer and propose alternative potential ways forward with Russians through all available channels.
“This continues to be a top priority,” Ms. Jean-Pierre mentioned.