Closing arguments began in the trial Thursday amid concerns that she is being used as a political pawn in the country’s war on Ukraine.
Griner arrived at court in handcuffs and was escorted by Russian officers into the defendant’s cage. Once uncuffed, she spoke with her legal team and then held up a photo of the UMMC Ekaterinburg basketball team, the Russian squad she played for during the WNBA offseason.
The defense also has tried to undermine the prosecution’s case. On Tuesday, at the seventh hearing in her case, a defense expert testified that the examination of the substance contained in Griner’s vape cartridges did not comply with Russian law.
“The examination does not comply with the law in terms of the completeness of the study and does not comply with the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure,” forensic chemist Dmitry Gladyshev testified during the roughly two-hour session.
Maria Blagovolina, of the Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin & Partners law firm, Griner’s attorney, told CNN her team’s experts identified “a few defects” in the machines used to measure the substance.
At trial, Griner has testified she has a doctor’s prescription for medical cannabis and had no intention of bringing the drug into Russia. Following her detention in February, she was tested for drugs and was clean, her lawyers previously said.
“She’s still focused, and she’s still nervous. And she still knows that the end is near, and of course she heard the news so she’s hoping that sometime she could be coming home, and we hope, too,” Blagovolina said Tuesday. She added the verdict in the case will come “very soon,” potentially Thursday.
Charge d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Russia, Elizabeth Rood, arrived at the court Thursday ahead of the hearing. She has appeared in court throughout the trial and on Tuesday said the US would “continue to support Miss Griner through every step of this process and as long as it takes to bring her home to the United States safely.”
How the trial has gone
Griner’s attorneys have already laid out some arguments claiming the basketball player’s detention was not handled correctly after she was stopped February 17 by personnel at the Sheremetyevo International Airport.
Her detention, search and arrest were “improper,” Alexander Boykov, one of her lawyers, said last week, noting more details would be revealed during closing arguments.
No lawyer was present, Griner testified, and her rights were not explained to her. Those rights would include access to an attorney once she was detained and the right to know what she was suspected of. Under Russian law, she should have been informed of her rights within three hours of her arrest.
In her testimony, Griner “explained to the court that she knows and respects Russian laws and never intended to break them,” Blagovolina said after last week’s hearing.
“We continue to insist that, by indiscretion, in a hurry, she packed her suitcase and did not pay attention to the fact that substances allowed for use in the United States ended up in this suitcase and arrived in the Russian Federation,” Boykov, of Moscow Legal Center, has said.
The trial has played out amid the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the country’s saber-rattling with the US and Europe.
The Kremlin also warned Tuesday that US “megaphone diplomacy” will not help negotiations for a prisoner exchange involving Griner. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow believes these talks should be “discrete.”
Griner’s family, supporters and WNBA teammates have continued to express messages of solidarity and hope as they wait for the conclusion of the trial. Her WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury, is expected to play the Connecticut Sun on Thursday night at 7 p.m. ET.
CNN’s Elizabeth Wolfe, Travis Caldwell, Dakin Andone, Kylie Atwood, Evan Perez, Jennifer Hansler, Natasha Bertrand, Frederik Pleitgen, Chris Liakos and Zahra Ullah contributed to this report.
