US protests basketball star Griner's move to Russian penal colony

Russian authorities last week transferred US basketball star Brittney Griner from a detention centre outside Moscow and she is now on her way to an undisclosed penal colony, her legal team and Washington's top diplomat said on November 9.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist was arrested on February 17 - a week before Russia invaded Ukraine - at a Moscow airport, where she was found to have vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia, in her luggage according to Reuters.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement on Wednesday said Griner was being transferred to a "remote penal colony" and that the United States expects Russian authorities to provide its embassy officials with access to Griner and other Americans detained in Russia.

"We strongly protest the movement of Brittney Griner to a remote penal colony and the Russian government's use of wrongful detentions," Blinken said in a separate post on Twitter.

The Women's National Basketball Players Association, in a statement, said it was "crushed" by the move, calling it a "scary, seemingly never-ending nightmare," adding "the lack of clarity and transparency in the process compounds the pain".

Griner, 32, was sentenced on August 4 to nine years in a penal colony on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs. She had pleaded guilty, but said she had made an "honest mistake" and had not meant to break the law.

She was transferred from a detention center near the Russian capital on November 4 in order to be taken to a penal colony, but neither her current location nor her final destination are known, her legal team said in a statement.

In line with Russian procedures, they said her attorneys and the US Embassy should be notified upon her arrival, but that it would take up to two weeks for that to happen.