WNBA star Brittney Griner has been launched from custody in Russia and is on her method again to the U.S. after a monthslong imprisonment on drug prices, President Joe Biden mentioned Thursday.
“She is secure. She is on a aircraft. She is on her method residence,” Biden tweeted together with a photograph of him embracing Griner’s spouse, Cherelle Griner, within the White Home Oval Workplace.
The 2-time Olympic gold medalist was freed in a prisoner swap for worldwide arms seller Viktor Bout, CBS Information and different shops reported, citing U.S. officers.
“We by no means stopped pushing for her launch. It took painstaking and intense negotiations,” Biden mentioned at information convention alongside Griner’s spouse, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Biden thanked these concerned within the negotiations and likewise the United Arab Emirates, the place the prisoner swap occurred. He described the previous few months as “hell” for Griner and her spouse, however famous Griner is “in good spirits, relieved to lastly be heading residence” after experiencing “useless trauma.”
Griner, 32, was detained in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after police mentioned they discovered vape canisters containing hashish oil in her baggage. Griner admitted that she had the canisters, however mentioned that they had been unintentionally packed and that she had no legal intent.
She was sentenced to 9 years in jail for drug possession in August.
The prisoner swap, whereas successful, leaves behind an American the U.S. says has been wrongfully imprisoned in Russia since 2018.
Former Marine Paul Whelan, 52, has been in custody on espionage prices, which he has denied, and was sentenced to 16 years in jail in 2020.
Biden mentioned that securing Whelan’s launch stays a precedence and that the swap for Griner “was not a alternative about which American to carry residence.”
“For completely illegitimate causes, Russia has handled Paul’s case completely different from Brittney’s,” he mentioned.
Biden mentioned his administration would proceed negotiating for Whelan’s launch and urged Russia to do the identical.
Whelan mentioned in a cellphone name to CNN that he’s “drastically disillusioned” he wasn’t launched from a penal colony in a distant a part of Russia.
“I don’t perceive why I’m nonetheless sitting right here,” he mentioned.
Whelan mentioned he was instructed that his espionage prices positioned him at a better degree than each Griner and former Russian prisoner and Marine Trevor Reed, whose launch was secured by the U.S. in April.
Nonetheless, he mentioned he had been hopeful.
I “was led to imagine that issues had been shifting in the proper course, and that the governments had been negotiating and that one thing would occur pretty quickly,” Whelan instructed the community.
Whelan’s brother additionally expressed disappointment in an e mail to reporters, however mentioned his household had been knowledgeable upfront that his brother wouldn’t be coming residence.
“That early warning meant that our household has been in a position to mentally put together for what's now a public disappointment for us. And a disaster for Paul,” mentioned David Whelan.
Whelan’s brother mentioned the household doesn't begrudge Griner for gaining freedom and all the time knew one in all them could also be freed with out the opposite.
Nonetheless, he mentioned the household feels as if the U.S. authorities now has twice failed them. He pointed to the profitable launch of Reed in April as a primary missed alternative.
“Paul has labored so onerous to outlive practically 4 years of this injustice,” David Whelan mentioned. “I can’t think about he retains any hope that a authorities will negotiate his freedom at this level.”
David Whelan expressed considerations for his brother’s well being and feared their dad and mom, who shall be 85 and 83 on the fourth anniversary of Whelan’s detention later this month, might by no means see him once more.
“Time is Paul’s, and our, enemy. The probability that our dad and mom will see their son once more diminishes every day his wrongful detention continues,” David Whelan mentioned. “More and more, I fear that Paul himself gained’t survive 12 extra years in a Russian labor colony. He has tried to remain wholesome however one wonders how lengthy that willpower to maintain going can endure.”
He requested for donations to Paul Whelan’s GoFundMe account that he mentioned is used to assist him in jail.
Reed’s mom, Paula Reed, mentioned she was “heartbroken for Paul Whelan and his household,” although “elated” for Griner and her household.
“We grew to become near the Whelan’s throughout our ordeal [with] Trevor’s detention,” Paula Reed wrote in a Fb submit. “They had been the primary different household we spoke to after Trevor was arrested they usually gave us assist because the very starting. They're good individuals and we pray that Paul has his homecoming quickly.”
Trevor Reed was arrested in Russia in 2019 after being accused of drunkenly assaulting native cops, which he denied. Throughout his trial, the then-U.S. ambassador to Russia mentioned the prosecution’s proof was “so preposterous that they provoked laughter within the courtroom. Even the decide laughed.”
Reed, sentenced to 9 years in jail, was freed in a prisoner change.
Paige Lavender contributed reporting.
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