Star U.S. basketballer Brittney Griner has now been imprisoned in Russia for almost five months. In February, just short of the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian customs claimed to find hash cartridges in the elite athlete’s luggage, and she’s been detained ever since. Griner’s wife, Cherelle, is concerned about the health and wellbeing of her life partner as the trial starts, and upon hearing that her detention has been extended to December 20.
The wives missed the chance to chat on the phone for their fourth anniversary because nobody was at Moscow’s U.S. Embassy to connect the call — which had been planned weeks in advance. It would have been the first time they could hear each other’s voice in four months.
Cherelle was understandably a mess: “I was distraught,” she told the Associated Press. “I was hurt. I was done, fed up. I’m pretty sure I texted BG’s agent and was like: ‘I don’t want to talk to anybody. It’s going to take me a minute to get my emotions together, and just tell everybody I’m unavailable right now.’ Because it just knocked me out. I wasn’t well, I’m still not well.”
The pair have been able to write letters to each other, but what is allowed to be written and read? Cherelle senses Griner is trying to be stoic.
“Because I am her person, she is always going to write persuasively to make sure I don’t break because she knows I’m studying for my bar, and she knows I have all these things going on,” Cherelle said to Rev. Al Sharpton on his SiriusXM radio show Keepin’ It Real.
“And she’s trying to always be my strong person so she’s telling me she’s OK.”
“She’s like, ‘I’m OK, babe. I’m hardened. I’m not me right now. When I come home, it’s going to take me a minute to get back to myself, but I’m holding on. I won’t break until I come home. I won’t let them break me. I know they are trying to, but I’m going to do my best to just hold on until I can get home’.”
“Every second that goes by, BG is struggling – she is a human. She’s struggling. She’s there, terrified. She’s there, alone.”
Legal experts are not hopeful about Brittney’s case. They believe it’s more likely that she will be found guilty, which could carry a penalty of 10 years in Russian prison.
“Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S., acquittals can be overturned,” the Associated Press reported.
Cherelle noted she has been told that Griner’s release is a “priority,” and is at the “highest chain of command,” but, because the government have yet to “execute” anything, she’s depending on public pressure to free Brittney.
“Brittney matters,” she said. “We’re never going to shut up about this until she’s back.”
Back in May, the U.S. government determined that Brittney Griner had wrongfully been detained by the Russian Federation. Experts believed this was a step in the direction of releasing Brittney, but it has been two months since the U.S. government made the statement and the Russian government has only doubled down.
There was hope Washington would intervene before Griner took the stand, but the trial started on July 1.
“Griner, 31, was escorted into the courtroom in the capital’s suburb of Khimki while handcuffed, carrying a water bottle and what appeared to be a magazine, and wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt,” reported the Associated Press.
“The state-owned Tass news agency quoted Griner as saying in court that she understood the charges against her. Asked by the judge if she wanted to enter a plea, Griner responded, “At this moment, no, your honor. At a later date.”
“Two witnesses were questioned by the prosecution: an airport customs official, who spoke in open court, and an unidentified witness in a closed session. according to the state news agency RIA-Novosti. The trial was then adjourned, it said, when two other witnesses did not show up.”
Brittney looks worrisome and exhausted, but Alexander Boykov, an attorney for the WNBA star, said “[Griner] has been exercising and taking walks in the detention area.”
The Associated Press reported that Griner “wishes she could work out more and that she was struggling because she doesn’t understand Russian.”
While experts believe Griner is being used as a bargaining chip in Moscow-Washington relations over the invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied politics play a role in Brittney Griner’s detention and prosecution.
“The facts are that the famous athlete was detained in possession of prohibited medication containing narcotic substances,” Peskov told reporters. “In view of what I’ve said, it can’t be politically motivated.”
However, wife Cherelle is pleading with President Biden to act now, calling Griner a “political pawn.”
Griner’s supporters have suggested a prisoner swap, which brought home Marine veteran Trevor Reed from Russia, in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of “drug trafficking conspiracy.”
“Russian news media have repeatedly raised speculation that she could be swapped for Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence on conviction of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization,” according to the Associated Press.
“Russia has agitated for Bout’s release for years. But the wide discrepancy between Griner’s case — which involves alleged possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Bout’s global dealings in deadly weapons could make such a swap unpalatable to the U.S.
“Others have suggested that she could be traded along with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction that the U.S. has repeatedly described as a setup.”
In the words of Cherelle: “Nothing about this is justice.”
