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Detained US basketball player Griner transferred to penal colony, lawyer says

Brittney Griner was found guilty of the illegal possession and transportation of drugs, as well as drug smuggling on a significant scale

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/. US basketball star Brittney Griner, sentenced to nine years in prison in a Russian drug case, has been transferred from a pre-trial detention center to a penal colony, the athlete’s lawyer Maria Blagovolina told TASS on Wednesday.

"On November 4, our client Brittney Griner was transferred from a pre-trial detention center where she had been held since her detention to a penal colony where she will serve her sentence. At present, we are unaware of her current whereabouts or where she is being taken to. As lawyers, we and the US embassy should be notified as soon as she reaches the point of her destination," Blagovolina insisted.

A court outside Moscow earlier sentenced Griner to a prison term and a fine of 1 million rubles ($16,390). The Moscow Regional Court upheld the ruling and it came into force.

Griner was found guilty of the illegal possession and transportation of drugs, as well as drug smuggling on a significant scale.

The US basketball player was arrested in Russia earlier this year on charges of attempting to smuggle drugs into the country through Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. During a court interrogation, she pleaded guilty but emphasized that she had put cannabis oil in her bag in haste and without any intention to smuggle. As a member of the United States national women’s team, Griner won gold medals at the 2014 and 2018 World Championships, as well as at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. Before her arrest, she played for Russia’s Yekaterinburg professional basketball club.

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