After almost 10 months in the custody of Russian authorities, WNBA star Brittney Griner has finally been released from prison and is currently being medically evaluated at a local United States hospital. The Phoenix Mercury center was serving a nine-year Russian prison sentence after pleading guilty to illegally smuggling drugs into the country; she was behind bars since February 17 of this year.
This is a day we have worked towards for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release… It took painstaking and intense negotiations, and I want to thank all the hard-working public servants across my administration who worked tirelessly to secure her release, United States President Joe Biden stated in a recent post to his verified Twitter account.
Resulting from an official prisoner swap between The United States and Russia, Griner was traded for Russian arms dealer Viktor “The Merchant of Death” Bout this past Thursday, December 8, 2022, who was serving a lengthy U.S. prison sentence for money laundering, arms trafficking, and conspiring to kill Americans. As Griner is now back in the arms of her beloved wife of three years, Cherelle Griner, the couple now looks for the best route to adjust back to their regular daily life.
Cherelle went on to release a short statement on behalf of her wife’s overseas imprisonment: We do understand that there are still people out there who are enduring what I endured for the last nine months of missing, tremendously, their loved ones… [Thursday] is just a happy day for me and my family, so I am going to smile right now.