'Secretary of State Blinken, President Biden's national security team and the entire American government remain committed to bringing Ms. Griner home safely to her family and friends,' said U.S. Embassy official Elizabeth Rood.
A U.S. Embassy official in Moscow called the verdict and Griner's sentence"a miscarriage of justice."Following a Russian court's announcement of a guilty verdict in the case of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner on Thursday, calls mounted for President Joe Biden to take any necessary steps to help free the Women's National Basketball Association player.
The court sentenced Griner to nine years in a penal colony and ordered her to pay a fine of about $16,000 for smuggling and storing drugs. Grinerto the charge but has maintained that she did not intend to break Russian laws and had mistakenly packed the oil. Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner called Griner's sentence"egregious" and called on Biden to"do everything in his power to get her back to the U.S." as well as work to release people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses in the United States.
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