A complaint by U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich against the extension of his pre-trial detention, which he denies, was dismissed by a Russian court on Tuesday. Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on March 29 in Yekaterinburg on espionage charges that could lead to 20 years in prison.
After a closed hearing at the Moscow city court, Judge Yuri Pasyunin announced that the appeal complaint had been rejected. Before the hearing, journalists were permitted to photograph and film Gershkovich while FSB officers, some wearing masks, observed.
The court’s decision implies that the earlier ruling to keep Gershkovich in detention until at least November 30 remains valid. No trial date has been set.
Gershkovich is the first American journalist to be detained on spy charges in Russia since the Cold War. Though Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the United States that Gershkovich was caught red-handed attempting to obtain military secrets, Moscow has not released any evidence supporting these allegations.
The charges have been labeled as “ridiculous” by the White House, and President Joe Biden has deemed Gershkovich’s detention as “totally illegal”. The Journal also refutes the charges and demands his immediate release, as does his family.
Gershkovich, who was born to Soviet emigrants and grew up in New Jersey, is fluent in Russian. He relocated to Moscow in late 2017 to work for the English-language Moscow Times, and later joined the French news agency Agence France-Presse.
In February 2022, Russia declared the commencement of its “special military operation”, coinciding with Gershkovich’s stay in London before he was slated to return to Russia and join the Journal’s Moscow bureau. It was arranged that he would reside in London but frequently travel to Russia for reporting assignments as an accredited correspondent with the Foreign Ministry.
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan
Credit: The Star : News Feed
