Women’s basketball star Brittney Griner soon to be transferred to Russian penal colony

The Moscow regional court has upheld an earlier district court decision that sentenced the American basketball player Brittney Griner to nine years in prison on drug charges. On the prosecution’s request, the court has recalculated Griner’s prison term, counting each day of her pre-trial detention as 1.5 days in a penal colony.

On August 4, Moscow’s Khimki District Court sentenced Griner to nine years in prison. Russian authorities pressed drug trafficking charges against Griner following an inspection of her luggage at the Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport last February, when hashish vaping oil was found in one of her bags.

The original verdict counted each day spent by Griner in custody as one day towards her prison term. After the recalculation, she’s en route to spend eight, instead of nine, years in a penal colony.

Griner’s defense lawyers petitioned the court to commute, or else suspend her sentence. Following the appeal, in which the higher court upheld the Khimki court’s earlier decision, nothing stands in the way of Griner’s transfer to a penal colony.

Russia and the United States have discussed the possibility of exchanging Brittney Griner for a Russian person currently serving a prison term in the US. Victor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer currently serving his 25-year sentence in Illinois, is one possible candidate for the trade.

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