Griner’s lawyer hopes she can be exchanged in U.S.-Russia prisoner swap

KRASNOGORSK, Russia (Reuters) – U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner’s Russian lawyer said on Tuesday that she and her team hoped she could be released in a prisoner exchange with the United States.

Speaking to reporters after an appeal court near Moscow upheld Griner’s nine-year jail sentence for possessing and smuggling vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, lawyer Alexander Boykov said: “We hope that an exchange is possible.”

He said the legal team would speak with Griner in the next few days, and that it would be for the American to decide whether she wanted them to pursue a further appeal.

(Reporting by Filipp Lebedev and Olesya Astakhova; Editing by Kevin Liffey)