The American athlete imprisoned in Russia appealed the court decision

The team of American basketball player Brittney Greiner, who was sentenced to 9 years in Russia, filed an appeal against the court verdict. This was reported by RIA Novosti, citing the athlete's lawyer, Maria Blagovolina.

"Brittney Greiner's defense team filed an appeal against the verdict of the Khimki court," said Blagovolina.

It should be noted that the basketball player was arrested at Sheremetevo airport on February 17 of this year. 0.702 g of hash oil was found in his luggage. He himself admitted this, but said that he did not sell drugs, but used them for himself . He was charged with drug smuggling (Part 2 of Article 229.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and their illegal transportation (Part 1 of Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Greiner wrote a letter to the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, asking for help . In fact, this letter reached Mr. Biden, who said that he would do everything possible to bring the athlete back to the United States .

After that, negotiations were held between the USA and Russia on the exchange of prisoners. But these negotiations ended without results.

In the end, Brittney Grayner was found guilty of drug smuggling and transportation, sentenced to 9 years in prison by the Khimki court and fined 1 million rubles.

FYI, Brittney is a two-time Olympic champion with the US women's basketball team. Since 2015, he has been working in the UGMK basketball club of Russia. Also, Grayner was included in the list of the 25 most powerful basketball players of the WNBA.