Russia frees US basketball star Britney Griner in exchange for weapons dealer Bout

The US and Rus­sia trad­ed US bas­ket­ball star Brit­tney Griner for noto­ri­ous arms deal­er Vik­tor Bout, who has been in a US prison for 12 years.

Accord­ing to Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, Griner is safe and on the plane return­ing from the Unit­ed Arab Emirates.

“I’m glad Brit­ney is doing well…she needs time and space to recov­er,” he said at the White House.

Griner was arrest­ed at a Moscow air­port in Feb­ru­ary for pos­ses­sion of cannabis oil and was sent to a penal colony last month.

In July last year, the Biden admin­is­tra­tion pro­posed a pris­on­er swap after learn­ing that Moscow had long sought Bout’s release.

The Russ­ian For­eign Min­istry con­firmed the exchange, say­ing it took place at Abu Dhabi air­port. It issued a state­ment that “Russ­ian cit­i­zens have returned to their home­land,” but it is believed that they have not yet arrived in Russia.

Accord­ing to Russ­ian news agen­cies, he is still being flown to Vnuko­vo air­port near Moscow.

Griner’s wife Sher­rell said in the Oval Office, “I’m stand­ing here in deep emo­tion,” prais­ing the efforts of the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to get him released. The ordeal was one of the dark­est events in his life, she added.

A joint state­ment by Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE reveals that Sau­di Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, along with UAE Pres­i­dent Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, played a lead­ing role in the medi­a­tion effort. .

When nego­ti­a­tions began over the sum­mer for Griner’s release, the Unit­ed States said it also want­ed to release for­mer Marine Paul Whe­lan. But his fam­i­ly’s hopes were dashed in 2018 when it was revealed that Whe­lan, who was impris­oned on espi­onage charges, would not join the Russ­ian swap.

In the end, Pres­i­dent Biden signed an order to release Bout, com­mut­ing his 25-year sen­tence and mak­ing a straight swap with Greiner.

Vik­tor Bout sold weapons to war­mon­gers and rogue gov­ern­ments, becom­ing one of the most want­ed men in the world.

He was dubbed “The Mer­chant of Death” in the post-Sovi­et arms trade, and in 2005, a Hol­ly­wood movie based on his life, War­lord, was made.

In 2008, he was arrest­ed in a hotel in the Thai cap­i­tal of Bangkok in a sophis­ti­cat­ed US oper­a­tion, anger­ing the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment and end­ing his secrecy.

Extra­dit­ed two years lat­er, he has spent the last 12 years in an Amer­i­can prison on charges of con­spir­a­cy to mur­der Amer­i­cans in aid­ing terrorists.

Mr. Bout’s sit­u­a­tion is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from that of his cur­rent pris­on­er exchange partner.