The lawsuit was initiated when Russian police claimed they discovered vape cartridges with hashish oil in Griner’s luggage at a Moscow airport in February. The discovery coincides with tense relations between Moscow and Washington over the situation in Ukraine.
Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) standout Griner was detained and accused of carrying a sizable amount of narcotics.Shortly after noon on Friday, Moscow time, the 31-year-old athlete was spotted in handcuffs entering Khimki City Court while sporting a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and footwear without laces, which are prohibited in Russian jails.
Griner was informed by the prosecution that she was being accused of knowingly trafficking drugs. Griner spoke forward to say she was aware of the accusations. Elizabeth Rood, the deputy chief of mission, and two other embassy staff members were present in the courtroom. With a zip-lock bag of cookies and a bottle of mineral water, Griner was perched inside a cage.
Griner told a Reuters reporter that she was finding imprisonment difficult since she couldn’t communicate in Russian and that she was only able to keep up with basic activities like stretching
.She would not yet be entering a plea of guilty, her attorneys told Reuters. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, denied the lawsuit was politically motivated when questioned about it.
