Joe Biden Phoenix Mercury Brittney Griner Paul Whelan Viktor Bout Russia Usa Moscow San Antonio state Texas basketball Joe Biden Phoenix Mercury Brittney Griner Paul Whelan Viktor Bout Russia Usa Moscow San Antonio state Texas

WNBA star Brittney Griner back in U.S. following high-profile Russia jailing, prisoner swap

cbc.ca

Brittney Griner disembarked from a plane in Texas early Friday, nearly 10 months after the basketball star was detained in Russia and became the most high-profile American jailed abroad.

Griner was exchanged for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout. The plane carrying her touched down at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

The deal achieved a top goal for U.S. President Joe Biden — but failed to win freedom for another American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for nearly four years.

Biden's authorization to release Bout, the Russian felon once nicknamed "the Merchant of Death," underscored the heightened urgency that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case on drug charges and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony.

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:U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who on Friday left an Army medical center where she had been recuperating following her release from a Russian penal colony as part of a prisoner swap, said she would work to help bring other detained Americans home and planned to resume her WNBA career.
Brittney Griner said she's "grateful" to be back in the United States and plans on playing basketball again next season for the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury. Her comments came a week after she was released from a Russian prison, freed in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange.
:U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who on Friday left an Army medical center where she had been recuperating following her release from a Russian penal colony as part of a prisoner swap, said she would work to help bring other detained Americans home and planned to resume her WNBA career.
Brittney Griner left the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, on Friday, eight days after the U.S. basketball star arrived at the facility following her release from a Russian penal colony as part of a prisoner swap, CNN reported.

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