Brittney Griner sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia

Olympic champion in 2016 and 2021, member of the All-Star team eight times, she led the American basketball league WNBA in points and blocks in 2017 and 2019: Brittney Griner is one of the best basketball players in the world.

But at the moment, Griner, who is over two meters tall, is not in the public eye because of her sporting achievements. On Thursday, a Russian court sentenced her to nine years in prison. Before that, she had been in custody for almost half a year. The charge: drug smuggling.

The case received new explosiveness a few days ago when the USA brought a prisoner exchange into play. Griner and Paul Whelan, another American jailed in Russia, were to be exchanged for the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. The “Dealer of Death” was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a New York court in 2011.

Why is Brittney Griner in prison?

Brittney Griner was arrested on February 17 after Russian authorities found cannabis oil in her luggage. Possessing and transporting the oil is a criminal offense in Russia. At first, Griner said she was innocent. She later pleaded guilty at a hearing to a lighter sentence.

Russia has very strict drug laws. 2019 reported the “Moscow Times”that a quarter of all Russian prison inmates are serving drug offenses. In a European comparison, Russia has the most people per capita arrested for drug-related offences.

Griner could be a pawn in geopolitical confrontation

Initially, the American government held back with public statements in the Griner case. Her arrest only became known after two weeks. The US’ initial strategy was to pay as little attention to the case as possible. The Kremlin shouldn’t have the impression that Griner is a valuable prisoner.

The reversal came at the beginning of May: the American government announced that Griner had been illegally imprisoned. US Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee from Griner’s hometown of Houston had previously called for the basketball player’s release.

At first, the US feared that Griner could be used as a bargaining chip. Russian state media raised the issue of a prisoner swap back in June. At the end of July, the American side then dared to go public: Foreign Minister Antony Blinken announced that he had made a substantial offer to his counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the Griner case. It has not yet been confirmed that it is actually the arms dealer But that the US wants to exchange for Griner and Whelan. It is extremely unusual for details of negotiations about possible prisoner exchanges to become public at all.

Griner has been playing basketball in Russia for eight years

Griner was not in Russia for the first time in February. Since 2014 she has been playing for the Russian basketball team UGMK Yekaterinburg.

It’s not uncommon for female basketball stars to compete in the United States as well as for a team abroad. The season in the WNBA lasts only four months. Here, Griner earns the collectively agreed maximum salary of $228,000 per season. Gross. She is said to have received up to one million dollars from her second club in Yekaterinburg. Net.

Add to that amenities like private jets, a penthouse, and a dedicated driver like that “Washington Post” reported. For financial reasons, many American professional basketball players spend half the year in Russia, China or Turkey.

Most of the money they earn there comes from extremely rich businessmen who also run a basketball club. This is also the case in Griner’s case: the owners of the Yekaterinburg team are the oligarchs Andrei Kositsyn and Iskander Makhmudov. They own the Russian mining and metallurgical conglomerate UGMK.

Every year, the billionaires pump their zinc and copper mining profits into the basketball team to assemble a top-flight roster. It pays off: Griner won the Euroleague four times with Yekaterinburg and was Russian champion three times. Kositsyn has been on Canada’s sanctions list since the end of May.

WNBA: The political league that supports autocrats

The low wages of the players, which forces them to work abroad, do not fit with the political orientation of the WNBA.

Long before American athletes knelt at the national anthem to signal their allegiance to the Black Lives Matter movement, drew WNBA players’ attention to police violence against black people. In 2020 the league established one Social Justice Council. Among other things, this should coordinate initiatives against racism, homophobia and transphobia.

But because of their comparatively low income, many play in countries that are diametrically opposed to the values ​​​​of the league. About a quarter of WNBA players belong to the LGBTQ community. Griner is also openly homosexual. However, she spent half of her last eight years in Russia, where a law prohibiting homosexual propaganda has been in force since 2012.

in one Article from 2016 Griner’s colleague Diana Taurasi, who also played in Yekaterinburg, made a joke that she could end up in a Russian prison because of her sexual orientation. The joke has become deadly serious – albeit for different reasons.

The Griner case fuels the discussion about the different earning potential of professional female basketball players and their male colleagues. That’s how LeBron James became of the magazine «Forbes» recently named the first NBA billionaire – a status female pros will never come close to achieving.

Griner is a priority for the US

After the conviction, an exchange of prisoners could now be initiated. It is important for President Joe Biden to bring the prominent prisoner home soon.

According to recent poll nearly a third of Americans polled are unhappy with how Biden is handling the case. With the midterm elections in November 2022 approaching, the president could be in trouble if the basketball star doesn’t come home by then.