Russian court to hear basketball star Griner

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Russian court to hear basketball star Griner

American basketball star Brittney Griner is due to appear in court on Monday for a preliminary hearing ahead of her trial, more than four months after she was arrested for possession of cannabis at a Moscow airport.

If convicted of crimes of large-scale transportation of drugs, the Phoenix Mercury star, considered to be the United States most gifted female athlete, could face 10 years in prison. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S. acquittals can be overturned.

A preliminary hearing on Brittney Griner's case is expected to be held at the Khimki City Court in Moscow at 2 p.m. local time 7 a.m. The court was confirmed in documents by Judge Anna Sotnikova.

The trial date has not been announced but is expected to be announced soon, and Griner was ordered to remain in pretrial detention until July 2. The hearing in the court of the Moscow suburb of Khimki is to address procedural issues.

Griner's detention and trial come at an extremely low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which exacerbated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia's denunciation of U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine.

Amid the tensions, Griner s supporters had taken a low profile in hopes of a quiet resolution until May when the State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and shifted oversight of her case to its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, effectively the U.S. government's chief negotiator.

That move has drawn additional attention to Griner's case, with supporters encouraging a prisoner swap like the one in April that brought home Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy.

Russian news media have repeatedly raised speculation that she could be swapped for Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, nicknamed The Merchant of Death, who is serving a 25 year sentence on conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and provide aid to a terrorist organization.

Russia has agitated for Bout's release for years. But the discrepancy between Griner's case - she allegedly was found in possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil - and Bout's global dealings in deadly weapons could make such a swap unpalatable to the U.S.

Others have suggested that she could be traded in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and Security Director who served a 16 year sentence on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a conspiracy.

U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, asked Sunday on CNN whether a joint swap of Griner and Whelan for Bout was being considered, sidestepped the question.

He said that I have no higher priority than making sure Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home. I can't comment in any detail on what we are doing, except to say that this is an absolute priority. Any swap would probably require Griner to be convicted and sentenced, then apply for a presidential pardon, Maria Yarmush, a lawyer who specializes in international civil affairs, told the Kremlin-funded TV channel RT.