Griner urges supporters to contact Whelan, help Americans detained abroad

FILE PHOTO: U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, stands inside a defendants' cage before a court hearing in Khimki outside Moscow, Russia August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool/File Photo

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner called on her supporters to write letters to Paul Whelan, the former U.S. Marine held in Russia, days after she was released from a Russian penal colony as part of a prisoner swap.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist and eight-time Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) All-Star was arrested in February at an airport outside Moscow for carrying vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.