The president of United States, Joe Bidendemanded this Thursday that Russia release “immediately” the American basketball player Brittney Griner, sentenced today by the Russian justice to nine years in prison.
“This is unacceptable, and I call on Russia to immediately release her so that she can be with her wife, her loved ones, her friends and her teammates,” Trump said in a statement. brief statement issued by the White House and that cites the agency Eph.
Biden promised that his government will continue to work “relentlessly” and “seeking all possible avenues” so that Brittney and former Marine Paul Whelan “return home and are safe as soon as possible.”
At the end of the month, the US government made a proposal to Russia to secure the release of Griner and Whelan in what, according to the CNNwould be an exchange of prisoners with the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, imprisoned in the United States and whose release the Kremlin demands.
The statement comes shortly after the Russian Justice sentenced the American basketball player to nine years in prison for drug possession and smuggling.
The sentence, in Biden’s opinion and according to the source, shows what the world “already knows”; that is to say, that she is wrongly detained in Russia.
The United States and Russia exchange prisoners serving long sentences
Griner, double world champion and Olympic champion with her country, was arrested last February at a Moscow airport with cannabis oil in her suitcase, a prohibited substance in Russia.
The sentence was passed in a court in Khimki, in the Moscow region. When she was read, Griner, 31, said she understood the ruling and showed little emotion, despite her sternness.
With information from Efe and Ap.
