Official shares details on Brittney Griner's flight back to the U.S.

Brittney Griner gets out of an airplane in San Antonio, Texas.
(Image credit: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)

During her 18-hour flight back to the United States, WNBA star Brittney Griner spoke about what it was like in captivity and the time she spent at a Russian penal colony, Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, said on Sunday.

Griner was arrested in February at a Moscow airport after authorities discovered cartridges with cannabis oil in her suitcase. ​​​Carstens told CNN's State of the Union that Griner boarded a U.S. government plane bound for San Antonio and said, "I have been in prison for 10 months now, listening to Russian. I want to talk." She then introduced herself to the crew members, shaking their hands and asking for their names. Carstens said he estimates Griner "spent 12 hours just talking, and we talked about everything under the sun."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.