Griner and his attorneys had requested for an acquittal or at the least a discount in his sentence, which they stated was disproportionate to the crime and was opposite to Russian judicial observe.
The presiding decide stated the decision was upheld “without change” aside from counting the time served in pre-trial detention as a part of the sentence.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was arrested at Moscow airport on February 17, every week earlier than Russia despatched troops to Ukraine, and her case basically references the approaching disaster in US-Russian relations. has been seen in
The American cost d’affaires in Moscow, Elizabeth Rudd, who attended the listening to, referred to as the sentence “excessive and disproportionate”.
The state prosecutor stated Griner’s August 4 sentence of 9 years within the penal colony was “fair,” however Alexander Boykov, certainly one of his attorneys, instructed the courtroom:
“No judge, with folded hands, would honestly say that Griner’s nine-year sentence is in line with Russian criminal law.”
He listed a sequence of procedural loopholes in Griner’s sentence and requested his acquittal, however requested that “if the court wishes to punish him, [it should] Give him a fresh, ‘fair’ verdict and commute the sentence.”
“The severity and brutality of the punishment applied to Griner shocked people around the world,” he stated.
Judges had been allowed to make remaining statements by stay video hyperlink from his detention heart within the metropolis of Novoy Grishino, simply exterior Moscow, with Griner saying how tense his eight-month detention and two trials had been.
“I was barely over a significant amount [of cannabis oil] … people with more serious crimes have got less than what I was given,” she said.
What Griner said was an honest mistake, as he said in his original trial: “I did not intend to try this”, and requested the courtroom to consider the truth that he pleaded responsible.
She has stated that she used medical hashish to alleviate ache from a sequence of sports activities accidents. Both leisure and medicinal use are prohibited in Russia.
Dressed in a black and pink lumberjack shirt, the 32-year-old sat or stood in her cell alternately, typically together with her head down, typically leaning in opposition to the white bars.
When requested if she understood the decision, she replied solely “yes”.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
