Brittney Griner freed in prisoner swap for Viktor Bout

Brittney Griner was freed from prison in Russia on Thursday in a dramatic high-level prisoner swap for the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

The swap of Bout, who was once called “the Merchant of Death”,  underscores the pressure President Joe Biden was under to secure Griner’s release. The imprisonment of the two-time Olympic gold medallist, who was found guilty of tenuous drug charges and held for 10 months in a Russian jail, raised US attention on wrongful detainees abroad.

Biden said at the White House on Thursday that Griner was on her way home .

“Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” Biden said. “Held under intolerable circumstances, Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones and she should have been there all along. This is a day we worked towards for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release. It took painstaking and intense negotiations.”

Griner flew from Russia to the United Arab Emirates, he said.

“These past few months have been hell for Brittney and (wife) Cherelle,” Biden said. “She’s relieved to finally be heading home. The fact remains she's lost months of her love. She deserves space, privacy and time with her loved ones to recover and heal.”

A WNBA player with the Phoenix Mercury, Griner was detained at a Moscow airport on February 10. She admitted in court to bringing marijuana vape cartridges in her luggage, which were prescribed by her doctor.

“She wrote to me back in July, she didn’t ask for special treatment,” Biden said. “She requested a simple quote, ‘Please don’t forget about me and the other American detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home.’ We’ve never forgotten about Brittney.”

Griner was convicted for criminal drug possession and sentenced to more than nine years in prison. Last month, Russian officials informed Griner’s attorney she was relocated to a penal colony, where forced labour shifts for prisoners commonly last between 12 and 14 hours per day.

Bout, who has been in jail in the US for 12 years, was one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, selling weaponry to rogue states, rebel groups and warlords in Africa, Asia and South America. He lived in SA in the ’90s. The former Soviet army lieutenant was sentenced to 25 years in the US for conspiring to sell tens of millions of dollars in arms that US officials said were used against Americans. 

The deal to free Griner had been negotiated for several months. Russia’s deputy foreign minister claimed that there was renewed “activity” in negotiations to free Griner one week before Thanksgiving. The US publicly denied those talks were active.

In initial public disclosures about negotiations, US officials insisted on the release of Michigan corporate security officer Paul Whalen, jailed since December 2018 in Russia on espionage charges. But the White House described the prisoner swap on Thursday as “one for one”, Bout for Griner. With staff writer 

Reuters