Brittney Yevette Griner is an American professional basketball player for the Phoenix Mercury of the Women’s National Basketball Association. She played college basketball for the Baylor Lady Bears in Waco, Texas. She is the only NCAA basketball player to both score 2,000 points and block 500 shots.
Brittney Griner: Speaking| Protests national anthem| Prisoner swap
Speaking:
Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death” whose weapons sales fueled deadly conflicts around the world, could be sent back to his motherland in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
Russian officials have long pushed for the release of Bout, who is currently serving a 25-year sentence in U.S. prison after being convicted in 2011 of conspiracy to kill Americans, conspiracy to deliver anti-aircraft missiles, and aiding a terrorist organization.
Protests National Anthem:
Conservatives are slamming Brittney Griner for her 2020 comments about removing the national anthem from WNBA games and some are even comparing her to those jailed after the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021.
Ms Griner has pleaded guilty in a Russian court to drugs charges that could see her sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The basketball player returned to court on Thursday to face her trial, as a senior Russian diplomat said that US criticism of Russia’s handling of the case wouldn’t help Ms Griner’s possibility of being released.
Prisoner Swap:
The United States government on Wednesday made public what everybody had suspected for months: it was negotiating a deal with Russia to free WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Reactions from experts in hostage negotiation were split. Publicizing deals to free Americans sets bad precedent and endangers Americans, some say. Others believe previous examples of such exchanges demonstrate it’s the only way to safely return wrongly detained prisoners.
He was nabbed in 2008 in a sting operation at a luxury hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, where he met with Drug Enforcement Administration informants who were posing as officials with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has been classified by US officials as a narco-terrorist group.
