Oct. 3 (UPI) — U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner’s attraction, in opposition to her nine-year jail sentence for drug possession in Russia, has been scheduled for Oct. 25.

The Moscow area courtroom introduced the appeal date Monday, following the WNBA star’s conviction in August. Her attorneys filed a right to an appeal days after she was discovered responsible.

Griner, 31, has been held in a Russian jail for nearly eight months since her arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February for carrying two vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her baggage. Griner had been in Russia to play for a Moscow basketball workforce throughout the WNBA low season.

The Phoenix Mercury all-star heart and two-time Olympic gold medalist pleaded responsible to the drug fees in July in a bid for leniency from the courtroom. In Russia, prison trials play out in courtroom even when a defendant pleads responsible. Regardless of Griner having lower than 2 grams of hashish oil in her luggage, the Russian courtroom dominated that she deliberately tried to smuggle it into the nation.

Griner’s nine-year sentence drew condemnation from her legal professionals who referred to as it “extreme” and accused the Russian courtroom of “fully ignoring all the proof.” Whereas hashish is unlawful in Russia, her attorneys argued Griner had a sound medical prescription for ache administration and didn’t deliberately pack the cartridges.

“I made an sincere mistake and I hope that in your ruling that it does not finish my life right here,” Griner stated in a press release to the courtroom in August earlier than her verdict was learn.

Griner’s attraction is taken into account by consultants a obligatory step towards a potential prisoner change between the Russian and U.S. governments. There have been reviews that Griner and probably Paul Whelan, an American jailed in Russia on espionage fees, may very well be swapped for Russian arms supplier Viktor Bout, nicknamed the “service provider of demise,” who’s at the moment serving a 25-year sentence in america.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated in July that “a considerable provide had been placed on the desk” for Griner’s launch — and that he’d additionally pressed Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov to launch Whelan.

Final month, President Joe Biden met individually with the families of Griner and Whelan on the White Home the place Biden reiterated “his continued dedication to working by way of all obtainable avenues to carry Brittney and Paul residence safely.”