Russia extends detention of American journalists
A Moscow court on Friday extended the pre-trial detention of an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, who is awaiting a hearing on an espionage charge that he, his newspaper and the US government vehemently deny.
The 32-year-old reporter, Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March 2022 during a reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, was ordered to remain in jail until at least March 30, according to the newspaper. a statement by the news service of the Moscow justice system. It was the fourth time Mr Gershkovich's detention has been extended, and it means he will spend at least a year in Russian custody.
A video of Mr. Gershkovich, posted with the statement, showed him sitting in a courthouse cage listening to the verdict, wearing jeans and a dark hoodie, with his arms folded. If convicted, Mr. Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison in a Russian penal colony.
On January 18, the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, Lynne M. Tracy, visited Mr. Gershkovich in prison. In a statement at the time the embassy said“We continue to call for Evan's immediate release.”
Russian lawyers who have worked on similar cases say it usually takes a year and a half for such proceedings to go to trial, and then it can take another six months. Russian investigators have not yet publicly presented any evidence to support the espionage charge against Mr. Gershkovich.
Russian authorities have suggested that they might be open to a prisoner swap for Mr Gershkovich, but only after a verdict is reached in his case. Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the US State Department, said in December that Washington had done so a “substantial” offer to exchange for Mr. Gershkovich and another American in custody, Paul Whelan, but that Moscow had rejected it.
Mr. Gershkovich was the first American journalist arrested on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War. In doing so, he underlined the extent to which Russia's invasion of Ukraine has damaged relations between Moscow and Washington.
The U.S. government has labeled Mr. Gershkovich “wrongfully detained,” which essentially means the U.S. government considers him a political prisoner.
Other Americans detained in Russia who have been given this designation include basketball star Brittney Griner, who was arrested on drug trafficking charges and released in a prisoner swap in December 2022, and Mr. Whelan, a former Marine and business executive who is a serving a 16-year prison sentence. -year prison sentence on espionage charges that the United States calls politically motivated.
In October, Russian authorities arrested Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S. broadcaster funded by the U.S. government. Ms Kurmasheva, who has dual Russian and US citizenship, was accused of failing to register as a “foreign agent”.