WNBA star and Olympian Brittney Griner, who was launched from a Russian jail final 12 months, inspired American journalist Evan Gershkovich in an NBC Information interview to “keep sturdy” following his sentencing in Russia on Friday.
Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security jail after he was discovered responsible of espionage in a case that his employer, The Wall Road Journal, and the U.S. authorities have condemned as a sham.
Gershkovich, 32, denied any wrongdoing within the case that went to trial final month within the metropolis of Yekaterinburg, greater than a 12 months after he was arrested within the southern Russian metropolis on espionage prices.
Griner, who was launched in December after serving about 10 months in a Russian penal colony, mentioned on Friday her coronary heart goes out to Gershkovich and his family members.
“I went by means of that, and I perceive what which means,” Griner mentioned.
“We’ve got to get him again, we’ve got to,” she mentioned, with a message to the journalist: “Don’t lose hope.”
In February 2022, Griner traveled to Russia to play her eighth season within the nation’s girls’s basketball league. She was arrested at a Moscow airport after two vials of hashish oil, totaling lower than a gram, had been present in her baggage on the airport in Moscow.
Griner pleaded responsible at her trial in July 2022 however mentioned she had no prison intent and had packed the canisters inadvertently as she hurriedly ready for her flight. She was sentenced to 9 years in jail.
She was launched after the Biden administration negotiated her launch in trade for arms seller Viktor Bout.
Griner is gearing as much as head to Paris for her third Olympics — her first time touring overseas since leaving Russia.
“I’m completely happy, I’m in an amazing place,” Griner mentioned. “I’m representing my nation, the nation that fought for me to come back again. I’m gonna symbolize it effectively.”
Griner shared that she welcomed a child boy, Bash, together with her spouse final week.
Gershkovich had been discovered responsible of accumulating secret details about the actions of a protection enterprise for the manufacturing and restore of army gear on directions from U.S. intelligence companies.
Choose Andrei Mineyev of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court docket remanded Gershkovich into custody till his sentence could be legally enforced. The journalist can also be anticipated to cowl the authorized charges, amounting to simply over $75.
His protection group has 15 days to attraction the sentence.