Brittney Griner on Gershkovich Arrest: ‘No One Should Be in Those Conditions’
He was detained by Russian security services in late March and charged with espionage in mid-April, an accusation that his employer and U.S. officials strongly deny. Ms. Griner was at an airport near Moscow in February 2022 when customs officials detained her for carrying a small amount of a marijuana concentrate in vape cartridges in her luggage. In August, Ms. Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony after she was convicted on drug charges.
She was freed as part of a prisoner exchange in December; Viktor Bout, an arms dealer nicknamed the Merchant of Death, was sent back to Russia. He had been convicted in 2011 on charges that included conspiring to kill Americans. Ms. Griner and Mr. Bout crossed paths on a tarmac in the United Arab Emirates, the site of the exchange.
Since her return, Ms. Griner has vowed to help other Americans who are considered wrongfully detained. On Thursday, Ms. Griner said that she had not spoken directly to Mr. Gershkovich’s family, but that the Mercury and Wasserman, the agency that represents her, had been “sharing knowledge, which is a big thing.”
She added: “It goes a long way because I mean, you’re in foreign territory and you’re in unknown waters. So there’s a lot know that we might know that they didn’t know so there’s been a lot of communication between both teams.”
Also on Thursday, three major American news papers jointly called for Mr. Gershkovich’s release, with a full-page ad in each of their print editions. The ad, published in the Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times, said the arrest was “the latest in a disturbing trend where journalists are harassed, arrested or worse for reporting the news.”
Source: The New York Times
