Brittney Griner is spending her 32nd birthday away from her family and friends.
The WNBA star—who is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence in Russia on drug charges—sent a message to her supporters as she celebrates another year around the sun alone.
"Thank you everyone for fighting so hard to get me home," the athlete said in a statement through her lawyer Maria Blagovolina, per CNN. "All the support and love are definitely helping me."
Griner's message comes eight months after the Phoenix Mercury center—who plays for a Russian basketball team during the WNBA off-season—was arrested when authorities discovered vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at the Sheremetyevo Airport near Moscow.
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After being detained for months, on Aug. 4, a Russian court found Griner guilty of drug possession and smuggling, finding that she committed the crime deliberately. She was sentenced to nine years in prison, and she received a 1 million ruble fine ($16,000) for the drug charges.
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Following Griner's conviction, her legal team released a statement, addressing the court's "unreasonable" ruling.
"We are very disappointed by the verdict," the athlete's legal team shared in a statement to E! News Aug. 4. "As legal professionals, we believe that the court should be fair to everyone regardless of nationality. The court completely ignored all the evidence of the defense, and most importantly, the guilty plea. This contradicts the existing legal practice. Taking into account the amount of the substance (not to mention the defects of the expertise) and the plea, the verdict is absolutely unreasonable. We will certainly file an appeal."
Two weeks later, Griner's attorneys filed an appeal against the ruling and a hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 25.
While Griner has been incarcerated, she has received a lot of support from those close to her, including her wife Cherelle Griner, who has been in contact with President Joe Biden regarding the basketball player's potential release.
Earlier this month, Cherelle shared an update on how Griner is doing as she continues to be locked abroad.
Read: Brittney Griner's 'Terrified' Wife Cherelle Griner Feels WNBA Star Is a 'Hostage' in Russia
"As much as everybody's telling me a different definition of what BG is, it feels to me as if she's a hostage," Cherelle said to anchor Gayle King in an Oct. 5 "CBS Mornings" interview. "It terrifies me because when you watch movies, sometimes those situations don't end well. Sometimes they never get the person back."
She continued, "This is my life and so I'm sitting there like, do we get her back? Do I ever get to see my wife again? The fact that everything's so unprecedented and everything is changeable. I feel like every day, I'm hearing something new and so it's just kind of like, it's terrifying."
