Reuters/Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool
Brittney Griner testified in a Russian court Wednesday that her initial questioning with investigators was bungled by an interpreter who omitted part of what she was saying.
The WNBA star, who has been held by Russian authorities since her arrest at a Moscow airport in February, also said she was told to sign documents with which she was not familiar, and that officials failed to provide an explanation of what they meant.
“A customs officer sniffed the cartridges that were laying in my bag, packed them and sent them off for examination,” Griner was quoted saying by Moscow-based newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. “After that they started to give me various documents and asked me to sign them. They brought a woman that called herself an interpreter, but she translated almost nothing, only short phrases: “surname,” “sign here.” No one explained my rights to me or what exactly I was signing. That’s why I called my family and my agent.”