Brittney Griner was reportedly transferred to a Russian labor prison where she will work 16 hours a day after losing her appeal Tuesday.
The eight-time WNBA All-Star was convicted on Aug. 4 of smuggling cannabis oil into Russia.
Her prison sentence was recalculated by the judges on Tuesday. One day in pre-trial detention will be counted as 1.5 days in prison, the Russian court said. That means she will serve less than 7 years in prison.
Russian media outlets report Griner was moved from a women’s pre-trial detention center to the Russian labor prison after the hearing.
Griner’s attorney Alexandr D. Boykov said she feared being transferred to a labor camp where the conditions are harsh and prisoners eat a bland meal once a day.
According to Yahoo! Life, inmates are forced to endure 16-hour workdays and watch nonstop state propaganda on television.
A bed was only recently custom-made to accommodate her 6’8″ frame at the pre-trial detention center, according to Yahoo! Life.
According to ESPN, Griner didn’t touch a basketball while in detention. The pre-trial detention center had a basketball hoop. But Griner declined an offer from her lawyer to provide her with a basketball.
Griner, 32, told her lawyer it was “too painful” to play the sport she loves while being held in captivity.
A Kremlin official said Wednesday that negotiations involving a prisoner swap for the WNBA star must be “conducted in silence under a tight lid on any information.”
