American basketball star Brittney Griner has been released in Russia, in exchange for a Russian arms dealer.
Griner was jailed in Russia after being caught with cannabis oils on her way to Russia in February. She he was sentenced to nine years in prison in Augustand has been in Russian custody ever since.
It was on Feb. 17 of this year that Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport with cannabis oils in her luggage, intended for use in e-cigarettes – so-called “vapes” – which she had a medical certificate to keep, according to The Guardian.
Griner won Olympic gold in basketball with the United States in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
The prisoner exchange, on the other hand, means that arms dealer Viktor Bout, also called the merchant of death, is released from the United States. The exchange is said to have taken place in Abu Dhabi. Bout was one of the most notorious illegal arms dealers in the world.
It was previously reported that the trade for Bout would be for Paul Whelan, who is a former Marine, convicted of espionage, and Griner. But CNN writes that Whelan is not part of the deal.
US President Joe Biden wrote at 2:15 pm on Twitter that he just spoke with Griner, who is safe, on a plane and on his way home.
The United States has exchanged a prisoner taken for cannabis oils with Russia for a man who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for, among other things, supplying equipment to terrorist organizations and selling weapons. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 by US narcotics agents posing as a member of the Colombian guerrilla organization FARC, he was extradited to the United States in 2010.
