WNBA star Brittney Griner has revealed she was spied on by her cellmate and made a makeshift shank out of a toothbrush while imprisoned in a hellhole Russian jail.
The Phoenix Mercury center, 33, spent more than nine months imprisoned in Russia after being caught entering the country with cannabis vape cartridges.
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Brittney Griner has revealed how she tried to make a shank while in a Russian prisonCredit: ABC
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Griner also described how she learned her cellmate was a spyCredit: AP
Her arrest in Moscow, just a week before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, triggered an international incident between Washington DC and the Kremlin.
Now, in her new book about her arrest, titled Coming Home, Griner relives her horror experience in Russia for the first time.
The Houston native flew to the Russian capital on February 17 to be with her teammates at UMMC Ekaterinburg, where she played in the WNBA offseason.
In five spells for the team, she won back-to-back championships and admitted that the country felt like a second home to her.
But she saw an entirely different side to Russia when she was stopped at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport with cannabis vape cartridges in her luggage.
The basketball star was legally prescribed medicinal marijuana in the US to aid with her recovery from injuries, but the drug is banned in Russia.
She admits to forgetting they were in her luggage after packing in a rush to get to training following her recovery from a bout of Covid-19.
Griner said she suspects she was singled out after a sniffer dog passed her in the airport but did not react.
This didn’t stop a customs agent from pulling her aside for additional screening – along with several other foreign internationals – when the almost-empty vape cartridges were found.
Griner’s nightmare then began, as she was taken to a hellish Russian prison with a hole in the floor for a toilet and denied access to a lawyer.
I’d been lying in the dark, thinking, ‘F**k, I ain’t got a weapon.
Brittney Griner
When finally her Russian attorney Alex did visit her in prison, he brought her several personal items, including snacks and a toothbrush.
Griner writes that she decided she would turn the toothbrush into a homemade blade, or shank, to use in prison in case she was attacked.
She said how she planned to sharpen it into a weapon, referencing the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black, set in a women’s jail.
Describing how happy she was to receive the toothbrush, she wrote: “The night before, I’d been lying in the dark, thinking, ‘F**k, I ain’t got a weapon. I can’t make no shank like they did in Orange Is The New Black.”
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Griner starred as a center for Phoenix Mercury and won championships in RussiaCredit: Getty
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Her life changed forever when she accidentally brought cannabis into RussiaCredit: AP
She added, “Thanks to Alex, I was armed.”
Griner details the horrifying conditions in Russia’s prison system, from cells teeming with diseases such as HIV to beds far too short to support her 6-foot-9-inch frame.
And while many of her fellow inmates supported and helped her, she found that some couldn’t be trusted.
One of her cellmates, Olya, seemed supportive at first. But she turned out to be spying on Griner, passing notes to the guards and even writing about her every movement in her diary.
She describes how she and another cellmate walked in on Olya passing a folded piece of paper to a guard.
Olya would constantly ask her how her legal battle was going, pressuring her for information whenever they were together until Griner and her other cellmate, Alena, became suspicious.
One day, the pair decided to “find out” whether or not she was a spy, so they took Olya’s journal while she was at a medical appointment.
Griner said Alena’s mouth “fell open” when she read the journal and saw how Olya had been keeping tabs on the pair since they had first moved in together.
“My name, in English, was on page after page,” she said.
“So was Alena’s. She’d kept notes on dozens of our conversations, dating back to our first day in the room.”
Griner explained how spying was common in the prison, with inmates doing favors for guards in return for better treatment inside.
And with her case now making headlines across the world, Griner was the most valuable inmate for any snitch in the jail.
Furious, Griner and Alena confronted Olya and were eventually able to force her out of the cell.
BRITTNEY GRINER PRISON HELL
WNBA legend Brittney Griner spent almost 10 months in a hellhole Russian prison in a case that became closely tied to US-Russian global tensions.
Feb 17, 2022: Brittney Griner is detained at a Moscow airport after customs agents find cannabis vape cartridges in her luggage.
Feb 24: Russia’s army invades Ukraine, sparking the biggest land conflict in Europe since the Second World War.
Mar 17: Griner’s pre-trial detention is extended a further two months a day after President Biden brands Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”
Mar 18: The US State Department issues its first statement on Griner’s case, demanding access to the star athlete and Houston native.
Mar 23: Griner meets with US officials for the first time, after over a month in prison.
May 6: Griner is honored by the WNBA at the start of the new season with a floor decal featuring her initials and her jersey number, 42.
May 25: Griner’s wife Cherell appears on Good Morning America and urges Biden to bring her spouse home.
Jun 20: Cherelle says she has lost “trust” in the US government after a planned anniversary call between Griner and her wife falls through.
Jul 1: Griner’s trial begins in Russia.
Jul 4: Griner writes a letter to President Biden begging for help. She tells him she fears she will be kept in prison in Russia “forever.”
Jul 7: Griner pleads guilty in court on drug charges, but says it was an accident and she never planned to break Russian law.
Aug 4: Griner is found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison. Biden slams the verdict and calls for her to be released “immediately.”
Oct 25: Griner’s appeal against her nine-year sentence is rejected after just half an hour.
Nov 9: Griner is transferred to a brutal Soviet-era penal colony to serve out her sentence.
Dec 8: Griner’s release is confirmed following months of negotiations as part of a prisoner exchange with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
In an interview with 20/20 this week ahead of the release of her book, Griner broke down as she described having suicidal thoughts during her time in the brutal Soviet-era prison camp.
Inmates were meant to get limited time outside but were sometimes left for two hours where they battled the harsh and unforgiving Russian weather.
In the penal colony where she was eventually sent after being sentenced to nine years in prison in August 2022, she was assigned to making military uniforms for Russia’s soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
She told Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts how her mattress “had a huge blood stain on it,” and described how she was forced to write a letter to Vladimir Putin begging for her freedom.
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Griner after her release in December 2022, following nine months of captivityCredit: AP
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The brutal conditions were revealed in her upcoming book, Coming HomeCredit: Knopf Publishing Group
Her trial was largely a foregone conclusion, and she was forced to plead guilty to the harshest sentence for drug smuggling while maintaining in the courtroom that she never intended to break Russian law.
She was finally freed on December 8 after months of negotiations between the US and Russia.
The WNBA hero’s release was secured as part of a prisoner exchange for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
President Biden, standing beside Brittney’s wife Cherelle Griner, thanked those who “worked tirelessly to secure her release.”
Griner writes how the support of her wife and family back in the US helped to keep her strong throughout the months she was imprisoned.
The WNBA and NBA also both held major campaigns to keep the spotlight on her case.
Griner’s bombshell book comes just days after she and Cherelle announced they are expecting their first child together.
The couple married in 2019, although the pair knew each other some years earlier when Griner was married to her first wife, Glory Johnson.
Griner has two children from her previous marriage.
Coming Home by Brittney Griner will be released on May 7.
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This week, she sat down with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts for an interviewCredit: AP
