Irish Examiner view: Griner verdict highlights danger of connecting with Russia

The conviction should convince other sports people, if needed, that connecting with Russia is a hugely risky decision

Brittney Griner is escorted from a court room after a hearing, in Khimki, just outside Moscow, on Thursday. Picture: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Russia’s political masters love a show trial. Under Stalin it was a way of purging potential rivals or dissident voices such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. With Khrushchev it was a form of grappling with the West over spying — Gary Powers, Greville Wynne, Oleg Penkovsky, all of them working for the CIA or MI6 — and under Vladimir Putin it has been different again, the banishment of political opponents and oligarchs.

But now, with tensions between Moscow and Washington at their highest for 60 years, what are we to make of the nine-year jail sentence for basketball star Brittney Griner, 31, for drug possession after vape cartridges containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage when she landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.