The deal, which noticed her swapped for infamous arms seller Viktor Bout, secured the discharge of probably the most distinguished American detained overseas and achieved a prime purpose for President Joe Biden.
But the US did not win freedom for an additional American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for practically 4 years.
Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, Baylor University All-American and Phoenix Mercury professional basketball star. Her standing as an brazenly homosexual Black girl, locked up in a rustic the place authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ group, injected racial, gender and social dynamics into her authorized saga and introduced unprecedented consideration to the inhabitants of wrongful detainees.
Biden’s authorisation to launch Bout, the Russian felon as soon as nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” underscored the heightened urgency that his administration confronted to get Griner residence, notably after the latest decision of her prison case on drug costs and her subsequent switch to a penal colony.
Griner was seen getting off a aircraft that landed Friday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
The athlete, who additionally performed professional basketball in Russia, was arrested at an airport there in February after Russian authorities mentioned she was carrying vape canisters with hashish oil. Before her conviction, the US State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a cost that Russia has sharply rejected.
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday’s swap, saying in a press release carried by Russian news companies that the trade befell in Abu Dhabi and Bout had been flown residence.
Biden spoke by cellphone with Griner. US officers mentioned she can be supplied specialised medical providers and counselling.
In releasing Bout, the US freed a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department as soon as described as one of many world’s most prolific arms sellers. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and extradited to the US in 2010.
Bout was serving a 25-year sentence on costs that he conspired to promote tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in weapons that US officers mentioned have been for use towards Americans.
Following Griner’s arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February, she pleaded responsible in July however nonetheless confronted trial as a result of admitting guilt in Russia’s judicial system doesn’t routinely finish a case.
She acknowledged in court docket that she possessed canisters with hashish oil however mentioned she had no prison intent and he or she by accident packed them.
Her protection workforce offered written statements that she had been prescribed hashish to deal with ache.
