By Nandita Bose and Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Over the past 48 hours U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner traveled from custody in a penal colony in Russia to Moscow, to an airport in the United Arab Emirates, U.S. officials say.
Griner arrived in the capital of Abu Dhabi by private plane from Moscow, as the Russian arms dealer she was being exchanged for, Viktor Bout, arrived on a private plane from Washington.
The two walked past each other on the tarmac, a U.S. official said.
Her brutal 10-months in captivity ended after months of fruitless negotiations between the United States and Russia, complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the souring of U.S.-Russia relations.
A senior administration official said President Joe Biden personally tracked the negotiations closely for months, but it was only in recent weeks that he made the “very painful” decision to provide clemency to Bout to get the swap done.
The UAE president and Saudi crown prince led mediation efforts that secured Griner’s release, a UAE-Saudi joint statement said.
Biden said on Thursday that he had spoken with Griner and she would be back in the United States within 24 hours.
Griner, 32, a star of the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Mercury, was arrested on Feb. 17 at an airport outside Moscow for carrying vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.
She was subsequently convicted of drug smuggling and transferred to one of Russia’s most feared penal colonies, where former inmates have described torture, harsh beatings and slave labor conditions.
Bout’s release leaves behind U.S. Marine Paul Whelan in Russian custody, a situation his family called a “catastrophe.”
“The negotiations … focused on getting both Americans held wrongfully detained in Russia home,” a U.S. official said. “Ultimately … it became clear that the choice was, as I’ve emphasized, that it was bringing Brittney Griner home right now or bringing no American home right now.”
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Humeyra Pamuk; writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Heather Timmons and Daniel Wallis)
