American basketball player Brittney Griner has been released by Russian authorities in a prisoner swap for arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Griner, 32, was en route to the United States, President Joe Biden said on Dec. 8.
“She’s safe. She’s on a plane. She’s on her way home,” he told reporters at a briefing at the White House in Washington.
Griner, a women’s basketball player who traveled to Russia to play for a team there, was arrested in February after customs officials found drugs in her luggage.
Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges while saying she had not meant to pack the canisters of cannabis oil in her luggage. She was sentenced to nine years in prison. She began serving time at a penal colony in Mordovia in November, her lawyers told news outlets….