: Brittney Griner to Appear in Russian Court Ahead of Trial #WorldNEWS (MOSCOW) — More than four months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport for cannabis possession, American basketball star

Brittney Griner to Appear in Russian Court Ahead of Trial #WorldNEWS
(MOSCOW) — More than four months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport for cannabis possession, American basketball star Brittney Griner is to appear in court Monday for a preliminary hearing ahead of her trial.
The Phoenix Mercury star, considered in some polls to be the United States most gifted female athlete, could face 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U. S. , acquittals can be overturned.
The trial date has not been announced, but is expected soon; Griner was recently 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.
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Griners detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Moscows Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russias denunciation of U. S. weapon supplies to Ukraine.
Amid the tensions, Griners 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 conviction of conspiracy to kill U. S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization.
Russia has agitated for Bouts release for years. But the discrepancy between Griners case — she allegedly was found in possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Bouts 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 serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a set-up.
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.