MOSCOW: Lawyers for American basketball star Brittney Griner on Monday filed an appeal against her nine-year Russian prison sentence for drug possession, Russian news agencies reported Monday.
Griner, a center for the Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted on Aug. 4. She was arrested in February at Moscow鈥檚 Sheremetyevo Airport after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage.
Griner played for a women鈥檚 basketball team in Yekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason.
Lawyer Maria Blagovolina was quoted by Russian news agencies on Monday as saying the appeal was filed, but the grounds of the appeal weren鈥檛 immediately clear.
Blagovolina and co-counsel Alexander Boykov said after the conviction that the sentence was excessive and that in similar cases defendants have received an average sentence of about five years, with about a third of them granted parole.
Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage, but said she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. Her defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis to treat pain.
Before her conviction, the US State Department declared Griner to be 鈥渨rongfully detained.鈥�
Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of revealing publicly in July that the US had made a 鈥渟ubstantial proposal鈥� to get Griner home home, along with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage.
Blinken didn鈥檛 elaborate, but The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Washington has offered to free Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the US and once earned the nickname the 鈥淢erchant of Death.鈥�
On Sunday, a senior Russian diplomat said exchange talks have been conducted.
鈥淭his quite sensitive issue of the swap of convicted Russian and US citizens is being discussed through the channels defined by our presidents,鈥� Alexander Darchiev, head of the Foreign Ministry鈥檚 North America department, told state news agency Tass. 鈥淭hese individuals are, indeed, being discussed. The Russian side has long been seeking the release of Viktor Bout. The details should be left to professionals, proceeding from the 鈥榙o not harm鈥� principle.鈥欌€�