US Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, waits for the verdict inside a defendants’ cage during a hearing in Khimki outside Moscow, on August 4, 2022(Photo by EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 10:10 AM PT – Thursday, December 8, 2022
Russia has freed basketball star Brittney Griner after a high-level prisoner exchange for notorious arms dealer, Viktor Bout.
The swap took place in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday after President Joe Biden signed an order commuting Bout’s 25-year federal prison sentence.
Viktor Bout, nicknamed The Merchant of Death, is a Russian arms trafficker serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States. He is considered to be one of the world’s largest illicit arms dealers.
Griner, an all-star center for the WNBA Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, is returning home after being sentenced four-to-nine years back in August for drug possession.
In February, Russian customs had arrested the Houston native after they found a cannabis vaporizer in her possession at a Moscow airport. In the ordeal, the basketball player pleaded guilty but maintained that she had no criminal intent.
Paul Whelan, a US citizen and former Marine wrongfully detained by the State Department, was not included in the prisoner swap. The Biden’s administration had sought the release of both Griner and Whelan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, Governor of Riyadh, after his arrival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)