The Russian Justice will address the next October 25 the resource presented by the American basketball player and star of the WNBAm Brittney Griner sentenced in August to 9 years in prison for drug possession and smuggling.
The Moscow Region Court will be in charge of studying the appeal, a court spokeswoman told local agencies. The hearing, in which the fairness of the sentence issued on August 4 by the urban court of Khimki, Moscow, will be assessed. It will start at 11:00 am (4:00 am New York time).
At the time the sentence was issued, the judge considered the athlete “guilty of committing the crime” stipulated by articles 228 and 229.1 of the Russian criminal code (drug possession and trafficking).
The world and Olympic champion with the United States team, who was arrested last February at a Moscow airport with cannabis oil in her suitcase, She accepted the ruling, although during the trial she asked for mercy after admitting her mistake.
However, her lawyers, who questioned the cannabis samples taken by the Russian police after her arrest as evidence, appealed the ruling on August 15.
Russian legislation punishes the crime committed by the American, 2.06 meters tall and who plays for the Russian team UMMC in Yekaterinburg, with a maximum of ten years in prison.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, proposed to her Russian colleague, Sergey Lavrov, the exchange of Griner and fellow American Paul Whelansentenced to 16 years for espionage, by the “merchant of death”, the Russian Victor But, who is serving 25 years in prison in an American prison.
The White House rejected Russia’s “opposition”who wanted to include a second Russian prisoner in the exchange, Chechen Vadim Krasikov, CNN reported.
In mid-September the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who has called for Griner’s immediate release received the relatives of the basketball player in the Oval Office of the White House.
The US maintains that it has made a “serious proposal for Griner and Whelan to come home”, but argues that Moscow has not yet responded.
Shortly after, the Russian Foreign Ministry assured that it is ready to negotiate at any time the exchange of Russian prisoners for Americans.