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MOSCOW, April 18 (AP) – A Russian judge on Tuesday upheld the detention of jailed U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested on espionage charges, part of the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown during the Ukraine war. part of dissent.
He and the U.S. government vehemently deny the allegations.
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The Wall Street Journal reporter, the first American journalist to be detained in Russia since the Cold War on espionage charges, has rattled journalists in the country and sparked outrage in the West.
Dozens of reporters packed the courtroom to get a glimpse of Gershkovic, who looked calm as he stood in a glass cage appealing his detention.
The FSB detained the 31-year-old in Yekaterinburg in March and accused him of trying to obtain classified information about a Russian arms factory.
Gershkovic, his employer and the U.S. government have denied he was involved in espionage and have demanded his release.
“Evan was a member of the Liberty Media and was engaged in news reporting until his arrest. Any suggestion otherwise would be false,” the magazine said in a statement.
Last week, the United States officially announced that Gershkovic was “wrongly detained.”
If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison. The Russian lawyer has said that in the past, investigating espionage cases took anywhere from a year to 18 months, during which time he had little contact with the outside world.
He has been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, which dates back to the tsarist era and has been a fearsome symbol of repression since Soviet times.
The arrests come amid tensions between the West and Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine, as the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on opposition activists, independent journalists and civil society groups.
This sweeping campaign of repression is unprecedented since the Soviet era.
Activists say that usually means the criminalization of the journalism industry as well as the activities of ordinary Russians who oppose the war.
Last month, a Russian court convicted a father of two years in prison for comments he made on social media critical of the war. A Russian court on Monday found top opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. guilty of treason for publicly denouncing the war and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
The United States has urged Moscow to grant Gershkovic consular visits. U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, who attended Tuesday’s hearing, said a day earlier that she had visited Gershkovich in prison. “He is in good health and strong,” she said on Twitter, reiterating the U.S. demand for his immediate release.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Greshkovich’s parents last week, again condemning his detention.
“We made it very clear that what was happening was completely illegal and we announced that,” he said.
Gershkovich is the first American journalist arrested in Russia on espionage charges since 1986, when U.S. News & World Report’s Moscow correspondent Nicholas Danilov was arrested.
Twenty days later, Danilov was released without charge in exchange for an employee of the Soviet mission to the United Nations who was arrested by the FBI, also on espionage charges.
A senior Russian diplomat said last week that Russia might be willing to discuss a potential prisoner exchange involving Gershkovich with the United States after the trial. That means any swap is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
In December, American basketball star Brittney Griner was traded for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout after her trial and conviction for drug possession. She was sentenced to nine years in prison and ended up spending 10 months behind bars.
Another Michigan corporate security executive, Paul Whelan, has been held in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government say are baseless. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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