In this picture made out of video supplied by Russian Federal Security Service, WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner sits within the aircraft as she flies to Abu Dhabi to be exchanged for Russian citizen Viktor Bout, in Russia, Friday, Dec. 9, 2022.

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In this picture made out of video supplied by Russian Federal Security Service, WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner sits within the aircraft as she flies to Abu Dhabi to be exchanged for Russian citizen Viktor Bout, in Russia, Friday, Dec. 9, 2022.

AP

SAN ANTONIO — American basketball star Brittney Griner returned to the United States early Friday after being freed in a high-profile prisoner exchange following practically 10 months in detention in Russia.

The deal, which noticed her swapped for infamous arms seller Viktor Bout, secured the discharge of essentially the most distinguished American detained overseas and achieved a high aim for President Joe Biden. But the U.S. did not win freedom for an additional American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for practically 4 years.

Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, Baylor University All-American and Phoenix Mercury professional basketball star. Her standing as an brazenly homosexual Black lady, locked up in a rustic the place authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ neighborhood, injected racial, gender and social dynamics into her authorized saga and introduced unprecedented consideration to the inhabitants of wrongful detainees.

Biden’s authorization to launch Bout, the Russian felon as soon as nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” underscored the heightened urgency that his administration confronted to get Griner residence, significantly after the latest decision of her prison case on drug costs and her subsequent switch to a penal colony.

Griner was seen getting off a aircraft that landed Friday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.

The athlete, who additionally performed professional basketball in Russia, was arrested at an airport there in February after Russian authorities mentioned she was carrying vape canisters with hashish oil. Before her conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a cost that Russia has sharply rejected.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday’s swap, saying in a press release carried by Russian information businesses that the trade came about in Abu Dhabi and Bout had been flown residence.

Biden spoke by cellphone with Griner. U.S. officers mentioned she could be provided specialised medical providers and counseling.

In releasing Bout, the U.S. freed a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department as soon as described as one of many world’s most prolific arms sellers. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and extradited to the U.S. in 2010.

Bout was serving a 25-year sentence on costs that he conspired to promote tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in weapons that U.S officers mentioned have been for use towards Americans.

Following Griner’s arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February, she pleaded responsible in July however nonetheless confronted trial as a result of admitting guilt in Russia’s judicial system doesn’t routinely finish a case.

She acknowledged in court docket that she possessed canisters with hashish oil however mentioned she had no prison intent and she or he unintentionally packed them. Her protection workforce introduced written statements that she had been prescribed hashish to deal with ache.