Overview

• Griner says Russian authorities moved her from a penal colony to a Moscow men’s prison as part of her December 2022 prisoner exchange and then forced her to strip naked in front of seven to eight male inmates.
• She described masked guards seizing her in a van, flying her through Dagestan to Abu Dhabi, and documenting her handoff to Viktor Bout’s team on camera.
• The WNBA star recounted witnessing a cellmate tortured by fellow prisoners who burned her with cigarettes and confined her to the cell door.
• Griner characterizes the strip search and harassment as deliberate attempts to dehumanize her during nearly 10 months of detention for carrying cannabis oil.
• Now starring for the Atlanta Dream, she has leveraged these revelations to amplify advocacy efforts on behalf of other Americans wrongfully detained abroad.