US basketball star Brittney Griner appeared to know she was going to face a troublesome sentencing as she had instructed her lawyer earlier than that she knew it could be “doomsday” for her.
Ms Griner additionally mentioned “I love my family” on Thursday as she was led out of a Russian courtroom in handcuffs after being sentenced to jail for 9 years on medication costs, Reuters reported.
“When we saw Brittney on Tuesday, we told her ‘see you on Thursday’. She said, ‘see you on doomsday. So it looks like she was right,” Ms Griner’s lawyer Maria Blagovolina mentioned, in keeping with Reuters.
The basketball star was convicted on costs of medicine possession and smuggling after she entered Russia with cannabis-infused vape cartridges.
Her sentencing was dubbed by her agent as “severe by Russian legal standards”.
“Today’s sentencing of Brittney Griner was severe by Russian legal standards and goes to prove what we have known all along, that Brittney is being used as a political pawn,” Lindsay Kagawa Colas, the basketball star’s agent, tweeted on Thursday.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken mentioned officers would proceed to work to deliver Ms Griner and “fellow wrongfully detained US citizen” Paul Whelan again to US soil.
“Nothing about today’s decision changes our determination that Brittney Griner is wrongfully detained,” he added.
President Joe Biden known as the sentence “unacceptable” and known as on Russia to launch the basketball star instantly in order that she will be together with her “wife, loved ones, friends, and teammates.”
“Today, American citizen Brittney Griner received a prison sentence that is one more reminder of what the world already knew: Russia is wrongfully detaining Brittney,” Mr Biden mentioned.
Ms Griner’s lawyer mentioned she was “very upset” and “very stressed” by the sentence.
During her closing remarks, the Houston native reportedly mentioned it had been “an honest mistake”.
