A senior Democratic senator has mentioned he believes Russia desires to make use of the WNBA star Brittney Griner, who has been held in Moscow for greater than a month on accusations she smuggled medicine into the nation, as a “negotiating chip” concerning the battle in Ukraine.
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“I think there’s no doubt that her detention, and then this continuation of the imprisonment, is all to try to make her a hostage and a part of this chess game,” Tim Kaine, of Virginia, informed Full Court Press in an interview scheduled to air in full on Sunday.
“Vladimir Putin and the Russians want to use her as a negotiating chip and what a horrific thing to do to someone,” Kaine mentioned.
Griner, 31, performs for the Phoenix Mercury within the WNBA however performs in Russia throughout the US offseason. She is a two-time Olympic champion.
She was detained at a Moscow airport on 17 February. Russian authorities mentioned a search of Griner’s baggage revealed vape cartridges allegedly containing oil derived from hashish, an offense that carries a most penalty of 10 years in jail.
Griner’s authorized workforce has been in search of her launch however amid tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine attorneys have declined to talk publicly.
On Friday, a member of a Russian state-backed jail monitoring group claimed Griner was nicely.
“Her physical condition is fine, she’s holding up fine and I’d even say that she is fairly calm and isn’t anxious,” Ekaterina Kalugina informed the Related Press.
Griner’s legal professionals have visited her recurrently, bringing care packages together with meals and private objects, however she has not but met with a US official, Kalugina mentioned, including that Griner has made no complaints about her therapy.
A number of lawmakers, amongst them the Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee, have voiced concern that Griner might be used as a political pawn.
“I don’t underestimate anything that Russia would do,” Jackson Lee told the Hill.
The US state division has elevated diplomatic strain on Russia to permit consular entry to Griner.
“We are closely engaged on this case and in frequent contact with Brittney Griner’s legal team,” the state division mentioned on Friday. “We insist the Russian government provide consular access to all US citizen detainees in Russia, including those in pre-trial detention, as Brittney Griner is.
“We have repeatedly asked for consular access to these detainees and have consistently been denied access.”
US diplomats have but to put Griner in a class of American vacationers it considers wrongfully detained, a subset that permits for extra authorities consideration underneath the particular presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
Griner is one in all a number of People detained in Russia.
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Trevor Reed, a former US marine, is serving 9 years on expenses of assaulting cops in Moscow. A company safety govt from Michigan, Paul Whelan, is serving 16 years on espionage expenses. The US authorities has mentioned the costs in opposition to Whelan are false and referred to as for his launch.
There seems little likelihood of Griner being launched rapidly. The Russian state information company Tass mentioned on Thursday a courtroom had extended pre-trial detention to 19 Might.
Griner is being held at a facility the place an Israeli girl, Naama Issachar, spent 9 months in detention after Russian authorities mentioned they discovered hashish in her baggage throughout a stop-over on a flight from India to Israel.
Issachar was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in jail earlier than Vladimir Putin pardoned her in 2020.
