After the United States obtained her release on Thursday in an extraordinary one-for-one prisoner swap for international arms dealer Viktor Bout, President Biden said WNBA star Brittney Griner is in “high spirits” and returning home.
Mr. Biden made a few brief statements at the White House on Thursday morning, saying, “She’s safe. She’s on a plane.” “Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones and she should have been there all along,” the statement continued. “This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release.”
In the morning, Griner and Griner’s wife Cherelle chatted on the phone from the Oval Office.
According to the initial reports, the transfer happened on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates. As of a week ago, the agreement had been struck, according to five former U.S. officials.
In February, Griner was stopped at a Russian airport, and she later entered a guilty plea to charges related to the discovery of cartridges containing cannabis-derived oil in her luggage.
Additionally, Mr. Biden declared that the United States would keep pushing for the release of Paul Whelan, a retired Marine who has been held by Russia since 2018. The president said that choosing which American to bring home was not a consideration in the Griner prisoner trade.
Paul Whelan has been wrongfully imprisoned in Russia for years, and we haven’t forgotten about him, Mr. Biden added. Unfortunately, Russia has treated Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s for spurious reasons. While we have not yet been successful in gaining Paul’s release, we have not stopped up and we will never give up. We brought home, Trevor Reed when we had the chance earlier this year.
In a statement, Paul’s brother David Whelan said that the family was “very thrilled that Brittney Griner is on her way home,” but lamented the fact that Paul was still behind bars.
Even though there might be an exchange without Paul, David Whelan remarked, “Our family is still inconsolable.” “Paul has worked so hard to survive nearly 4 years of this injustice. His hopes had soared with the knowledge that the US government was taking concrete steps for once toward his release. He’d been worrying about where he’d live when he got back to the US. I can’t even imagine how Paul will feel when he learns.”
Following Mr. Biden, Cherelle Griner expressed gratitude to government representatives for their efforts in bringing her wife home, calling her detention “one of the darkest days of my life.”
She said that she will “stay devoted” to bringing all Americans home, including Whelan, saying, “Today my family is entire, but as you all are aware, there are so many other families that are not whole.”
