CNN
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USA women’s basketball star Britney Greenner is being transferred to a Russian penal colony, where she will serve the remainder of a nine-year drug smuggling sentence that will be held in late October.
Her attorney said in a statement to CNN on Wednesday that Griner was “now on his way to exile.”
“We do not have any information about her exact current location or final destination,” attorneys Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov said.
“In accordance with standard Russian procedure, the lawyer, as well as the U.S. embassy, should be notified when she arrives at her destination. The notification is sent by official mail and usually takes two weeks to receive.”
The Russian penal colony is known for its lack of hygiene and medical services, and prisoners are often subjected to manual labor.
Last month, Griner lost an appeal against nine years of taking the drug. She was detained in February and convicted in August of knowingly smuggling drugs into Russia.
She has repeatedly apologized for bringing small amounts of marijuana into the country, where she played basketball in the offseason.
In a statement, Griner’s representatives confirmed they had no knowledge of her current location or condition.
“Our primary concern remains BG’s health and well-being,” said her agent Lindsay Colas. “As we go through this very difficult phase and don’t know where BG is or what she’s doing, we ask for the public’s support to continue writing letters expressing their love and concern for her.”
Greener’s detention has raised concerns that she was being used as a political pawn in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The U.S. government last week condemned the rejection of her appeal, which a State Department spokeswoman called “another denial of justice that only exacerbates the injustice of her detention in the first place.”