Why We Know Little About WNBA Star’s Arrest in Russia

 

 

• WNBA star Brittney Griner has been arrested in Russia on a charge of smuggling a significant amount of drugs.
• Russian law experts told Insider there is no evidence yet that this arrest was politically motivated.
• However, Griner is in for a long detainment and faces a system with a 99.75% conviction rate.

WNBA star Brittney Griner remains detained in Russia, and to the frustration of many, we still know little about her situation, the evidence justifying her arrest, or what might happen next.

Here is what we do know:

• Griner was detained at an airport as she entered Russia sometime in mid-February (possibly Feb. 17).
• Russian authorities released a video showing Griner at the airport and having her luggage checked by a dog and security. According to a statement from customs agents, Griner was accused of carrying “vapes with specifically smelling liquid, and an expert determined that the liquid was cannabis oil (hash oil).”
• A mugshot was released confirming it was Griner and that she was being charged with smuggling a significant amount of narcotics. If found guilty, Griner would face up to 10 years in a Russian prison.
• Russian state TV said she is doing “OK” and that her only complaint is that the beds are too small.

—ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) March 9, 2022

And that’s it.

Just as important is what we still don’t know.

We don’t know if Griner’s arrest is politically motivated, though it occurred about a week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent geopolitical standoff between the Russia and the US.

 

AP Photo/Eric Gay

Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said she believes Griner’s detainment in Russia was “targeted and purposeful.”

“Under the circumstances, I’m obviously concerned and believe the actions of the [Russian] Federal Customs officers was unnecessary,” Lee told The Hill. “And it was, in my perspective, targeted and purposeful. I don’t underestimate anything that Russia would do.”

No evidence yet that the Kremlin is involved in Griner’s case

A pair of Russian law experts told Insider there is no evidence yet that the case is politically motivated.

William E. Butler, a professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, pointed to the lack of information coming out about the case.

 

Michael Gonzales/NBAE/Getty Images

“So far, there hasn’t been [any evidence that the political side has gotten involved],” Butler told Insider. “What’s been remarkable about this case is so little has been said about it. We have so little details. All we have really got is the press release that the customs service released. That’s what triggered our knowledge of it. We’re not even exactly sure when she was detained.”

Jeffrey Kahn, a professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, also noted that there is no evidence that the Kremlin is involved in the case.

“I have no idea, none whatsoever, whether that is going to be of any interest to the state,” Kahn told Insider. “To be perfectly frank, the Kremlin has a lot more on its plate besides the possible drug trafficking of a WNBA player.”

 

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

However, if Griner does become a political pawn, Kahn explained that the Russian government could decide the case before it is ever tried.

“Although the Russian criminal justice system is wholly capable now of doing an excellent job hearing and resolving civil and criminal matters in a just and fair way, it is entirely possible in that system for a case to be shifted, so to speak, metaphorically, to the political side of the docket,” said Kahn, who has done extensive work and research on Russian law. “There is enough indirect and circumstantial evidence to lead a lot of analysts to conclude that in cases where the Kremlin wants a certain result, it will get a certain result.”

Experts say no evidence race and sexual orientation are motivating factors

Though being part of the LGBTQ+ community has been legal in Russia for nearly 30 years, same-sex marriage is not allowed. And even though there are no anti-discrimination or hate crime protections for queer people in the country, most Russians are not in favor of expanded LGBTQ+ rights.

With such strong hostility towards gay people in Russia, many wondered if Griner’s identity as a Black American in a same-sex marriage would impact her arrest or potential court case. But according to both Kahn and Butler, the 6-foot-9 star’s minority status doesn’t appear to have played a role in her detainment.

 

REUTERS/Brian Snyder

“There is nothing in that charge, there is nothing in the basic facts of being stopped by a customs guard, that in any way implicates her citizenship, her race, her sexual orientation,” Kahn told Insider.

Butler also noted that race and sexuality do not appear to be a factor at this point.

“I would be very surprised [if sexuality played a role in the case],” Butler told Insider. “It is irrelevant to the charge. I don’t see why it should…. It doesn’t help being an American at the moment. It may not hurt you, but it doesn’t help you.”

Drug charges are taken seriously in Russia, even cannabis

It might be a good sign that Griner is not being paraded in front of cameras and used as a political pawn. However, the silence is also concerning.

If this is just a standard case for the Russian court system, Griner is in for a potentially prolonged detainment.

 

AP Photo/Rick Scuteri

In a similar case cited by the Wall Street Journal, an American school teacher arrested on drug trafficking charges at an airport in Russia has been in jail since the summer of 2021 as the case continues to be investigated. In another, a young Israeli-American tourist accused of having a small amount of marijuana in her checked luggage was detained for nine months before being pardoned by President Vladimir Putin after negotiations for her release.

Griner is also going up against a Russian court system with a 99.75% conviction rate.

Slava Malamud, a former sports journalist for a leading national outlet in Russia, told Insider that drug charges are taken extremely seriously in the country. Even possession of cannabis, which Russian authorities claimed Griner was carrying off the plane, could be considered a major offense.

 

Chase Stevens/AP

“People in Russia have been detained and given enormous sentences for just having a small amount of marijuana,” Malamud said. “They’re really, really brutal and medieval about any type of drugs in Russia.”

Still, Malamud allowed for the possibility that Griner was caught in a larger geopolitical chess match. He characterized the drug-smuggling indictment as “the go-to charge if you wanna frame somebody.”

 

BSR Agency/Getty Images

Griner was headed to Russia to supplement her WNBA income by competing for European powerhouse club UMMC Ekaterinburg, a team that’s primarily owned by billionaire Russian oligarch Iskander Makhmudov. As for whether someone with as much money, power, and political sway as Makhmudov has the means to help free one of his superstars from a Russian prison, it depends.

“If it’s just federal criminal authorities who are holding her purely because she had that vape on her, I’m sure it can be all decided amicably if you pulled some strings,” Malamud explained. “But if she is being held as a retaliation to the United States, and it’s basically FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service]-slash-Putin’s inner circle who is making the decision, then no.”