Brittney Griner Back in Russian Court as Lawyers Plead for Leniency

News of her detention was made public only after the war started, however. She was charged with attempting to smuggle a significant amount of illegal narcotics into Russia, an offense that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Last month, Ms. Griner plead guilty to the charges, stressing that she had not intended to break Russian law and that the illegal substance had been in her luggage as a result of oversight while packing in a hurry. In Russia, a guilty plea does not end a trial, and the proceedings are expected to continue until mid-August, according to her legal team.

The case is scheduled to resume on Thursday.

Her lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Aleksandr Boikov, are trying to persuade the judge to soften the eventual sentence. They had one of Mr. Griner’s Russian teammates, Yevgeniya Belyakova, testify, along with the team’s director and doctor. Her legal team has also argued that she was authorized to use medicinal cannabis in Arizona, where she has played for the Phoenix Mercury since 2013, to mitigate pain from injuries to her spine, ankle and knees.

During her own testimony in court last week, Ms. Griner described how upon detention she had faced a confusing and sometimes bewildering Russian legal system. Her rights were not explained to her and a lawyer was provided only 16 hours after her detention began, she said. Ms. Griner also said that she had been instructed to sign papers with no explanation of what they implied and that an interpreter, provided by the law enforcement, had translated “almost nothing.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/world/europe/brittney-griner-russia-court.html