{"id":1767475,"date":"2022-12-08T10:19:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1767475"},"modified":"2022-12-08T10:19:38","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:19:38","slug":"biden-sends-merchant-of-death-arms-dealer-back-to-russia-for-wnba-player-brittney-griner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-sends-merchant-of-death-arms-dealer-back-to-russia-for-wnba-player-brittney-griner\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Sends \u2018Merchant of Death\u2019 Arms Dealer Back to Russia for WNBA Player Brittney Griner"},"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\">30<\/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%2Fbiden-sends-merchant-of-death-arms-dealer-back-to-russia-for-wnba-player-brittney-griner%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=1767475&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>By Nandita Bose and Humeyra Pamuk<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014U.S. basketball star Brittney\u00a0Griner\u00a0has been released in a prisoner swap with Russia and is on her way back to the United States, President Joe Biden said on Thursday, ending what he called months of &#8220;hell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Russian foreign ministry said it traded\u00a0Griner\u00a0for Russian citizen Viktor Bout, a former arms dealer. The swap took place at the Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates, Russian news agencies said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s safe, she&#8217;s on a plane, she&#8217;s on her way home after months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under intolerable circumstances,&#8221; Biden told reporters at the White House. &#8220;This is a day we&#8217;ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Griner, 32, a star of the Women&#8217;s National Basketball Association&#8217;s Phoenix Mercury, was arrested on Feb. 17. Talks to secure her release were complicated by Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and the subsequent deep souring of ties between Washington and Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone with\u00a0Griner\u00a0from the Oval Office, along with\u00a0Griner\u2018s wife, Cherelle. The White House released a photo of the telephone call.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These past few months have been hell for Brittney,&#8221; and for her wife, Biden said.<\/p>\n<p>A two-time Olympic gold medalist,\u00a0Griner\u00a0was arrested at a Moscow airport when vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia, were found in her luggage.<\/p>\n<p>She was sentenced on Aug. 4 to nine years in a penal colony on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs. She had pleaded guilty, but said she had made an &#8220;honest mistake&#8221; and had not meant to break the law.<\/p>\n<p>Last month she was taken to a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia to serve her prison sentence.<\/p>\n<p>Biden said the United States would continue to work to free Paul Whelan, a former Marine, who the president said Russia was treating differently.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul&#8217;s case differently than Brittney&#8217;s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul&#8217;s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up,&#8221; Biden said.<\/p>\n<p>Biden thanked the United Arab Emirates for helping facilitate\u00a0Griner\u2018s return.<\/p>\n<p>Bout, 55, was one of the world\u2019s most wanted men before his arrest, and was variously dubbed &#8220;the merchant of death&#8221; and &#8220;the sanctions buster&#8221; for his ability to get around arms embargoes.<\/p>\n<p>For almost two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014U.S. basketball star Brittney\u00a0Griner\u00a0has been released in a prisoner swap with Russia and is on her way back to the United States, President Joe Biden said on Thursday, ending what he called months of &#8220;hell.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe post Biden Sends \u2018Merchant of Death\u2019 Arms Dealer Back to Russia for WNBA Player Brittney Griner appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":1767478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1767475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767475","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=1767475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}