Brittney Griner is serving a nine-year prison sentence in Russia.
Brittney Griner was jailed in February. PDO
In August, two-time Olympic basketball champion Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison for a drug crime in Russia.
Griner, 31, was arrested in February at a Moscow airport after e-cigarette cartridges containing cannabis oil were found in his luggage.
Griner has been incarcerated ever since and has kept his wife to Cherelle Griner contact by letter.
– He does not feel well. We’ve reached that number of days where even a strong person says, ‘Honey, I don’t know how much longer I can take this,'” said Cherelle Griner for CNN.
– We had some very disturbing conversations where he shared how he was doing at the moment. We always got to the point where I was very worried.
Cherelle Griner met the President of the United States over the weekend Joe Biden In the White House.
Biden assured that he intends to continue the work he is doing and that he will use all avenues to get Brittney Griner back to the United States.
Cherelle Griner had been demanding a meeting with the president for months. It finally happened seven months after his wife’s arrest.
– It was not a meeting where the president told the kind of news I would have liked to hear. But it was one of those key meetings that brought confidence to his actions.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in August that the US intends to make a “significant offer” to Russia so that the country can get the Olympic champion and by Paul Whelan back. Whelan has been imprisoned for spying in Russia for more than three years and has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.
According to CNN, the offer was about the exchange of prisoners, and the United States would have offered a Russian arms dealer in exchange Viktor Boutia. Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008.
Cherelle Griner believes the US administration is doing everything it can to get Brittney Griner back.
– It’s not as simple as many might think – to look at the list of people we have and ask them to choose Russia. It is much more complicated.
Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug trafficking at the trial, but insisted that she did not do it on purpose. Griner said that he packed in a hurry and that the electronic cigarette cartridges got into the suitcase by accident.
Griner was on his way to UMMC Ekaterinburg.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison. PDO