The difficult math of a prisoner swap: Why did the US trade Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer, for Brittney Griner?

brittney griner in handcuffs
Russia has freed WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange, with the U.S. releasing notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. AP File Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

After months of detention in Russia, WNBA star Brittney Griner is finally back home in Texas with her family.

Griner, a two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and player for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, was arrested in Russia in February on charges of drug possession as she was leaving the country. Officials detained her after finding hashish oil in her luggage—a crime that carries up to 10 years in prison there.

headshot of xander meise
Xander Meise, associate teaching professor in the legal skills in social context program. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Griner was successfully exchanged via a prisoner swap for the release of Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer nicknamed “The Merchant of Death.” Bout had been convicted by a New York jury on four counts that included conspiring to kill American citizens, according to the New York Times. The Times reports that Bout had evaded capture for years and was “probably the highest-profile Russian in U.S. custody.”

Why did the trade require the U.S. to release Bout, who intelligence officials describe as “one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth”? 

Alexandra Meise, an associate teaching professor in the School of Law at Northeastern, says that negotiating the release of a wrongfully detained person is always a delicate matter—a kind of impossible math that can’t—and shouldn’t—be reduced to “weighing one life against another.”

“This is why I caution against viewing these situations as transactions or mathematical exercises,” Meise says. “Individual human lives and welfare are at stake. It does not reduce to a straightforward equation weighing one life against another or one specific charge under one legal system against a charge in another system. It is not that simple.” 

Additionally, negotiations of this kind always take place “against complex geopolitical and diplomatic backdrops, with many moving pieces and evolving factual frameworks,” she says.

Many human rights advocates have highlighted the fact that Griner, a Black queer woman, faced “unknown variables” while in Russian custody. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been cracking down on what he describes as “gay propaganda” with new draconian laws, further imperiling the safety and welfare of LGBTQ people in Russia.

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