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Griner was convicted on Aug. 4 in a verdict that U.S. President
Joe Biden called "unacceptable". Washington says she was
wrongfully detained and has offered to exchange her for Viktor
Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in
the United States.
Monday was the deadline for Griner to contest the verdict. Maria
Blagovolina, partner at Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin and Partners
law firm, told Reuters the appeal had been filed but declined to
comment further.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist who had played for a
Russian club, was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on
Feb. 17 after cannabis-infused vape cartridges were found in her
luggage.
She pleaded guilty to the charges but said she had not meant to
break the law. "I made an honest mistake and I hope that in your
ruling, that it doesn't end my life here," Griner told the court
at Khimki, near Moscow, at her sentencing.
It was not clear how soon an appeal could be heard.
"We demand to overturn the verdict passed by the Khimki court
and impose a new sentence," Alexander Boikov, a lawyer at Moscow
Legal Center who represented Griner in court, told Reuters.
He said the appeal would be mainly based on alleged violations
in the course of the investigation. Griner's defence team argued
in court that some of her case files had been drawn up without
being translated for her into English.
The athlete was caught up in a geopolitical storm when Russia
sent troops into Ukraine a week after her arrest and the United
States and its allies responded with unprecedented waves of
sanctions against Moscow.
Russia denies that the case was politically motivated. It has
warned the United States against engaging in "megaphone
diplomacy" and warned that any prisoner swap would have to be
negotiated in private.
In a Telegram post on Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took issue with the White House's
public criticism of the Russian court verdict. She contrasted
that with its silence over last week's FBI raid on the property
of former president Donald Trump, of which a White House
spokeswoman said Biden had not been aware.
"Let me remind you, Griner was smuggling cartridges of liquid
for smoking, which contained hashish oil. The basketball player
herself admitted this, since there was no point in denying it,"
Zakharova said.
"At the same time, the White House refuses to comment on the
investigation around Trump and the seizure of certain documents
related to the White House from him. Complete silence, although
we are talking about American justice and law enforcement."
(Reporting by Filipp Lebedev, writing by Felix Light, editing by
Mark Trevelyan and Hugh Lawson)
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