WOMEN’S BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES CALL FOR BRITTNEY GRINER’S RELEASE FROM RUSSIAN PRISON.
Brittney Griner was arrested in February at a Moscow Airport.
Brittney Griner was on the minds of some of the new Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Saturday night.
Penny Taylor, a former first-round draft pick of the Cleveland Rockers in the WNBA, three-time WNBA champion and a two-time Olympic silver medalist for Australia, called on President Biden and the U.S. government to do more to bring Griner home from Russia.
“BG is our family. She’s yours, too. The entire global sport community needs to come together to insist that she be a priority,” Taylor said.
DePaul coach Doug Bruno and former Los Angeles Sparks star DeLisha Milton-Jones also called for Griner to come home.
“Brittney is a great human being. No one deserves what Brittney’s going through. Enough is (absolutely) enough. It’s time for the powers that be to bring Brittney home,” Bruno said.
Griner has been held in Russia since February, after Russian authorities said they found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. In early May, the U.S. government determined that Griner was being “wrongfully detained” by the Russian government.
In mid-May, Griner’s pre-trial detention was extended one month, according to her lawyer. Griner’s lawyer believes that the short extension signifies that the case will go to trial shortly.
Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and won the 2014 WNBA championship with the Mercury.
