Brittney Griner is
back in the USA.
The lesbian
WNBA star landed at the U.S. Army’s Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston in
Texas Friday after her 10-month detention in Russia, The New York Times reports. She was smiling as
she left the plane.
Griner
was released Thursday in a prisoner swap between the U.S.
and Russia, in which the U.S. freed convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout
in exchange for Griner. She had been detained at a Russian airport in February
because she had vape cartridges containing a small amount of cannabis oil in
her luggage and was eventually sentenced to nine years in prison on
drug-smuggling charges. She had recently been taken to a penal colony after
losing an appeal of her sentence.
After landing,
she was taken to the Brooke Army Medical Center for examination, and she will
receive any treatment she needs there. “The U.S. government is focused on
ensuring that Brittney Griner and her family’s well-being are prioritized and
that all assistance available be offered in an appropriate manner,” said a
statement from the medical center.
Griner had
been going to Russia for several years to play for a team there during the
WNBA’s off-season. In the WNBA, she is center for the Phoenix Mercury.
President Joe
Biden said Thursday that he had spoken to Griner and confirmed that she was on
her way home. He tweeted images of him with her wife, Cherelle Griner, in the
Oval Office. The U.S. government had classified Brittney Griner as wrongly
detained and had spent months negotiating for her release.
“The effort of
working toward Brittney’s release has been going on since the first day she was
detained,” Keisha Lance Bottoms, a senior adviser to Biden and director of the
White House Office of Public Engagement, told The Advocate Thursday.“The success of
negotiations was due to the fact that everyone who could contribute, and anyone
who could help, from the National Security Council to our diplomatic corps, and
to President Biden worked together to make this happen.”
U.S. Special
Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens tweeted a welcome to
Griner Friday morning.
SOURCE: ADVOCATE
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