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I am glad that Brittney Griner is safely home, but the occasion of her return should serve as a reminder that Americans living or traveling in other countries are subject to the laws of those countries, not ours ("Griner ready to talk after hearing Russian for months," Dec. 12). As a former vice consul at American embassies in Spain and Zambia, I was responsible for visiting Americans in prison in those countries every month. The most common crimes for which they were incarcerated were violations of drug laws. Some of the sentences were years long, much as Griner's was. Americans who violate drug laws in other countries — as they define them — can end up in prison, and there is very little the American government can do about it. My task as a diplomat was to ensure American prisoners were treated fairly under the laws of the host country, not overturn those laws or circumvent them — even when they were different from ours.
I have not heard the case made that Griner was innocent of the charges made against her under Russian law. I don't know if other Americans have been arrested in Russia under those laws and what the outcomes were. But it seems evident that Griner was released from Russian prison, at great cost, because of her celebrity and her connections. If you are traveling and don't have fame and connections, I urge you to make an effort to understand and obey local laws when you travel out of the United States. You will not likely be rescued and invited to the White House if you are arrested.
David C. Smith, Minneapolis
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There has been a lot of criticism in right-wing circles about President Joe Biden's decision to swap an arms dealer known as "the Merchant of Death" for the release of Griner, and I agree that there are reasons to question whether this was an appropriate move or not. But criticizing the decision by questioning why another American locked up in a Russian jail, Paul Whelan, was not included in the deal is misguided at best. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, the Russians had no intention of including Whelan in any trade, so this was a question of "one or none."
Whelan has been described in the media as an ex-Marine who is being held under false claims of espionage. While it is true that he was once in the Marines and very well may have been falsely accused by the Russian authorities, several aspects of the story are not being widely discussed. First, Whelan was court-martialed in the Marines and eventually discharged for "bad conduct." The charges included attempted larceny, three instances of dereliction of duty, wrongfully using another's social security number, making a false official statement and 10 instances of writing checks without sufficient funds in his account. In addition, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reported that Whelan had $80,000 in cash along on this visit.
