MOSCOW — Russia is moving US basketball star
Brittney Griner to a penal colony after she lost an appeal against a drug conviction,
her lawyers said Wednesday, drawing a sharp rebuke from the White House.
اضافة اعلان
Griner, who has
been sentenced for nine years for possession of a small quantity of cannabis
oil, was transferred out of a detention center on November 4, her legal team
said.
She “is now on her
way to a penal colony”, lawyers
Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov said in
a statement.
“We do not have
any information on her exact current location or her final destination,” they
added.
Russia generally
notifies of a prisoner’s transfer to a different address by mail, taking up to
two weeks, the lawyers said.
Griner’s case
has drawn outrage in the US, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on
Wednesday describing her transfer as “another injustice layered on her ongoing
unjust and wrongful detention.”
Blinken has
sought a deal with Russia to free her despite soaring tensions over Moscow’s
offensive in Ukraine.
White House
Press Secretary
Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that the US had made Russia a
“substantial offer” to resolve her case.
‘Wrongful detention’
“Every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in
Russia is a minute too long,” Jean-Pierre said.
Griner — a
two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and Women’s NBA champion — had been
in Russia to play for the professional Yekaterinburg team during her off-season
from the
Phoenix Mercury Women’s National Basketball Association side.
She said the
cannabis in vape cartridges was to treat painful sports injuries, but Russia
does not allow medical marijuana use.
Observers have suggested
that Griner and another American jailed in Russia, Paul Whelan — a retired US
Marine arrested in December 2018 and conricted of spying — could be traded for
Viktor Bout, a famed Russian arms trafficker serving 25 years in prison on a
2012 conviction.
‘Totalitarian
system’
Activists say abuse and torture are frequent in Russia’s vast network
of prisons run by the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), a successor to the
notorious Gulag system of the Stalin era.
Penal colonies
are the most common type of prisons and are known for their harsh treatment of
inmates, insanitary conditions, and lack of access to proper healthcare.
Prison officials
also often limit inmates’ contact with lawyers and family. Harassment of
prisoners sometimes leads to prison riots.
Prisoners’
rights activist Vladimir Osechkin said conditions in penal colonies are much
harsher than in detention centers.
“It is a more
totalitarian system with Gulag uniforms and 100 people per room in barracks,”
Osechkin, who founded the Gulagu.net rights group, told AFP, warning that
prison officials routinely orchestrate conflicts and fights between inmates.
“If the Kremlin
decides not to torture the basketball player and creates VIP conditions for
her, she will be allowed to eat separately, play sports and keep fit,” said
Osechkin.
But if “the
federal prison service receives an order to put pressure on her then of course
her life and health will be in danger”.
A number of US
citizens including Whelan are currently behind bars in Russia.
Whelan’s brother
David regularly describes Paul’s life in the IK-17 colony in the central region
of Mordovia, saying he has undergone sleep deprivation and that suicides are
common in prisons.
The treatment of
the jailed opposition leader
Alexei Navalny has also highlighted abuses in
prisons, activists say.
The 46-year-old
has been repeatedly placed in solitary confinement, which his supporters say
amounts to torture.
Anti-torture project
Gulagu.net has drawn attention to what it calls systemic abuse and sexual violence
towards prisoners.
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