Brittney Griner Testifies How Cannabis Oil Ended Up In Her Bag

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She told defense lawyer Maria Blagovolina of how, after she went through passport control and security at the Moscow airport on Feb. 17, a staff member with a dog asked her to open her bags, before finding two cartridges.

Another worker “opened the cartridges, smelled them” and then her passport was taken and she signed some documents that she needed Google translate to understand, Griner said. There was an interpreter but she didn’t explain what she was signing, and she was never read her rights, she added.

By this time she had missed her connecting flight to Yekaterinburg, the central city where she plays basketball in the Russian premier league. She called her lawyer, but her phone was then confiscated and her lawyers were not allowed to see her until the early hours of the next morning, Griner told the court.

"At that point it felt like I was being held against my will," she said. "I asked again what's going on and when can I see my lawyer. I was then told I have to be interrogated."

She was then cross-examined by the prosecution, which asked her whether she pleaded guilty to drug smuggling.

"I do understand charges against me, I do take responsibility for them being in my bag, but I didn’t plan on bringing anything to Russia," she told the court.

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