U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner has been released in a prisoner swap with Russia and is now in U.S. custody, President Joe Biden said.
Griner, 32, a star of the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Mercury, was arrested on Feb. 17. Talks to secure her release were complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and the subsequent deep souring of ties between Washington and Moscow.
She was sentenced on Aug. 4 to nine years in a penal colony on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs. She had pleaded guilty, but said she had made an “honest mistake” and had not meant to break the law.Article content Biden said the United States would continue to work to free Paul Whelan, a former Marine, who the president said Russia was treating differently.
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