The only way Brittney Griner is coming home any time soon is through a prisoner swap between Russia and the United States.
There was no point of even fighting her case in court because the Russians know it is all a sham and there would never be a fair trial.
The worst-case scenario is she will be jailed in Russia for 10 years.
Detained WNBA star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty on Thursday to bringing hashish oil into Russia, telling a judge that she had done so “inadvertently” while asking the court for mercy.
The move is not expected to end her trial in Khimki, Russia, anytime soon. Even with a guilty plea in Russian criminal courts, the judge will continue to read the full case file into the record and it could still go on for weeks or months.
Griner, who was detained in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on Feb. 17, told the court that she packed the vape cartridges accidentally and did not intend to break Russian law.
“I’d like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” Griner told the judge in English, which was then translated into Russian for the court.
Sources said the guilty plea to charges of drug possession and smuggling was a strategy to help facilitate a prisoner swap that could bring Griner home, and it also was a recognition that there was no way she was going to be acquitted.
U.S. officials and Russia experts have described the trial, which was in its second day, as “theater,” with a guilty verdict seen as a foregone conclusion.
There is no timetable, but the real resolution to Griner’s case is expected to be a deal that brings one or more Russians currently in U.S. custody back to Russia in exchange for the release of Griner and possibly another American, Paul Whelan, who has been detained in Russia since December 2018.
Russia has sought the release of an arms dealer named Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence in the United States for supporting terrorism. But sources have said there are voices in the Biden Administration who have argued against releasing Bout, who is known by his nickname, “the Merchant of Death.”
To get Griner home we may have to release the “Merchant of Death” is something really crazy to think about.
President Biden told Griner’s wife they are working on her release.
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