{"id":395099,"date":"2022-12-08T08:52:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T13:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/ca\/?post_type=news&#038;p=395099"},"modified":"2022-12-08T10:27:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:27:00","slug":"wnba-griner-released-from-russian-custody","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/wnba-griner-released-from-russian-custody\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA star Griner released from Russian custody in prisoner swap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WNBA star Brittney Griner was released from custody in Russia today in a &#8220;one-for-one prisoner swap for international arms dealer Viktor Bout,&#8221; U.S. president Joe Biden confirmed.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-394579\" src=\"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/griner1-1024x683.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Biden is expected to speak on the issue at 8:30am ET at the White House.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner.<\/p>\n<p>She is safe.<br \/>She is on a plane.<br \/>She is on her way home. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FmHgfzrcDT\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/FmHgfzrcDT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; President Biden (@POTUS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/POTUS\/status\/1600841306560937986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">December 8, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,&#8221; Biden said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison following a conviction for drug smuggling in August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The double-Olympic winner\u00a0was arrested at an airport near Moscow in February when cannabis oil vapes were found in her bags.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/jailed-wnba-star-griner-moved-to-russian-penal-colony\/\">The 32-year-old was then transferred to a Russian penal colony<\/a> after an appeal of her conviction was denied Oct. 25.<\/p>\n<p>Sources said that the exchange agreement &#8220;negotiated with Moscow in recent weeks was given final approval by President Biden within just the last week.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The swap took place today in the United Arab Emirates. A White House official said that Biden &#8220;was in the Oval Office Thursday morning on the phone, speaking with Griner and her wife, and that Vice President Kamala Harris was also in the room&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WNBA star Brittney Griner was released from custody in Russia today in a &#8220;one-for-one prisoner swap for international arms dealer Viktor Bout,&#8221; U.S. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4224,"featured_media":395100,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[16813,16812],"news_category":[16715,16711],"gn_keywords":[],"acf":{"announce":"U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to speak on the issue ","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/395099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/395099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395099"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=395099"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=395099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}