A Russian court has extended Brittney Griner’s pre-trial detention by one month, a lawyer for the US basketball star has said.
Alexander Boykov told The Associated Press news agency on Friday that he believed the relatively short extension of the detention indicated the case would come to trial soon.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and All-Star Centre in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), was detained at the airport in the Russian capital in February on charges of carrying vape cartridges that contained cannabis oil in her luggage.
She appeared for the brief hearing on Friday handcuffed, her dreadlocks covered in a red hoodie and her face held low.
“We did not receive any complaints about the detention conditions from our client,” said her lawyer, Boykov.
Her detention has come at a time of heightened tensions between Russia and the United States over the continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the administration of US President Joe Biden has been pushing for access to Griner.