{"id":1555148,"date":"2022-07-14T17:35:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T21:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1555148"},"modified":"2022-07-14T17:35:57","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T21:35:57","slug":"russian-basketball-boss-defends-brittney-griner-in-drugs-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/russian-basketball-boss-defends-brittney-griner-in-drugs-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian basketball boss defends Brittney Griner in drugs trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frussian-basketball-boss-defends-brittney-griner-in-drugs-trial%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1555148&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>KHIMKI, Russia (Reuters) -A Russian basketball club director gave evidence in support of  U.S. Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star Brittney Griner on Thursday in her third appearance in a Russian court on drugs charges carrying a possible jail sentence of up to 10 years.<\/p>\n<p>Griner, the two-time Olympic gold medalist who has played in Russia during offseasons since 2014, was arrested at Moscow\u2019s Sheremetyevo airport on Feb. 17 after vape cartridges containing hashish oil were allegedly found in her baggage.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has categorized her as \u201ca wrongful detainee\u201d. Her case comes at a time when ties between Washington and Moscow are at their worst in decades over Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Defence lawyer Maria Blagovolina said UMMC Ekaterinburg club boss Maxim Ryabkov testified on Thursday to Griner\u2019s good character during the hearing, which was closed to reporters. <\/p>\n<p>Blagovolina said Ryabkov spoke of Griner\u2019s \u201coutstanding abilities as a player and personal contribution to strengthening team spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Team captain Yevgenia Belyakova also testified in Griner\u2019s defence at the court in Khimki, on the outskirts of Moscow, where Griner had earlier arrived under guard and in handcuffs.<\/p>\n<p>Blagovolina, of law firm Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners, said the defence was pleased with the latest session.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was an extremely emotional day for Brittney, who was touched by the appearance of the club director, head physician and her teammate, who gave an extremely positive description of our client both personally and professionally,\u201d she told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>At a hearing last week Griner pled guilty to the drug charges but said she had not intended to break the law. A spokesman for Griner\u2019s defence team said she would be back in court on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth Rood, charge d\u2019affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, and other U.S. officials attended Griner\u2019s trial Thursday and were able to speak to her in the courtroom, according to a State Department spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe is doing as well as can be expected in these difficult circumstances,\u201d the spokesperson said, and confirmed that Thursday\u2019s hearing included testimony from a fellow player and management of her Russian basketball team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMs. Griner told the State Department officials that she appreciated their presence,\u201d the spokesperson said, adding that Friday\u2019s hearing was planned to start at 10 a.m. local time. <\/p>\n<p>Russian authorities do not consider Griner\u2019s detention illegal and say the case against her is not political despite Moscow\u2019s fraught relations with the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Amid suggestions that Griner could be exchanged for a Russian citizen jailed in the United States, a Russian deputy foreign minister said last week that the \u201chype\u201d surrounding her case was not helpful.<\/p>\n<p> (Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington, Reporting by Reuters; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Josie Kao)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/?attachment_id=2726369\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI6D0I2-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI6D0I2-VIEWIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/?attachment_id=2726371\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI6D0I0-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI6D0I0-VIEWIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KHIMKI, Russia (Reuters) -A Russian basketball club director gave evidence in support of U.S. Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star Brittney Griner on Thursday in her third appearance in a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1555148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1555148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1555148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1555148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1555148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}