WNBA star Brittney Griner has been transferred to a Russian penal colony

US basketball star Brittney Griner was transferred last week from a detention center outside the Russian capital and is on her way to a penal colony, her legal team revealed on November 9, 2022.

On August 4th, a Russian court sentenced her to nine years in prison, nearly six months after authorities found cannabis oil in her bag at a Moscow airport. Ten days later, her lawyers appealed her conviction, but in earlier November, it was denied.

The Biden administration, who classifies Griner as “wrongfully detained”, offered Russia a prisoner exchange in June, in order to secure Griner’s release, as well as Paul Whelan’s, another American detained in Russia, pictured.

The U.S. offered to release Viktor Bout (pictured), a convicted Russian arms trafficker serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S. in exchange for Griner and Whelan. However, Russia has yet to respond to this offer.

Griner’s exact whereabouts nor her final destination are known, the legal team said in a statement, adding that in line with Russian procedures, her attorneys as well as the US embassy should be notified upon her arrival at the penal colony.

Russian penal colonies are prison labor camps that are essentially the remnants of the Soviet Union's infamous Gulag system, an acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration.

Russian law dictates that each inmate should have 20 square feet of personal space, but that standard, which is even less than the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights, is often not met in Russian facilities.

It's possible that Griner could have a less harrowing experience due to the fact that she’s a famous basketball player. 

Ivan Melnikov, the vice president of the Russian Department of the International Human Rights Defense Committee, told People, she may be allowed "to coach basketball in the daytime rather than being a seamstress."

People magazine also reported that such a move is not unprecedented, as Russian soccer players Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamayev coached inmates while they served time in one of the colonies.

But even accounting for Griner's advantage over other inmates inside the penal colony, her experience there will undoubtedly be very challenging.

In the meantime, Griner and her supporters can only place their hopes in the U.S. government, who has assured negotiations with the Russians to bring Griner home will continue “through all available channels.”