Wall St Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich faces Russian court on espionage charges
US reporter Evan Gershkovich appeared at a Moscow court on Tuesday, in the first partly open hearing since his arrest for alleged espionage.
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US reporter Evan Gershkovich appeared at a Moscow court on Tuesday, in the first partly open hearing since his arrest for alleged espionage, in a case that has drawn international condemnation.
Wearing jeans and a blue checkered shirt, Gershkovich crossed his arms and smiled before the start of the appeal hearing against his pre-trial detention.
US ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy was also in the courtroom, but she was ushered out along with the press during the hearing itself.
The press will only be allowed back in to hear the decision at the end of the hearing.
No questions were allowed during the brief media appearance and Gershkovich did not speak from inside the glass defendant’s cage.
There is little chance he will be released ahead of his trial, which could be months away.
The Wall Street Journal reporter, a US-born son of Soviet Jewish emigres, was arrested last month by Russia’s FSB security service during a reporting trip in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
The FSB said the 31-year-old tried to obtain classified defence information for the US government, but the details of the case have been kept top secret.
Gershkovich has firmly rejected the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Gershkovich, who has also worked for AFP, is the first foreign journalist arrested on spying allegations since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since his arrest on March 29, Gershkovich has appeared in court only once before – at a closed custody hearing on March 30.
He was remanded in custody until May 29 and is being held at the Lefortovo prison in Moscow, where many high-profile prisoners accused of treason and espionage have been held.
US President Joe Biden has called his imprisonment “totally illegal”. More than three dozen news organisations have also signed a letter to the Russian ambassador in the United States, denouncing “unfounded espionage charges”.
“Gershkovich’s unwarranted and unjust arrest is a significant escalation in your government’s anti-press actions,” the letter released by the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
“Gershkovich is a journalist, not a spy, and should be released immediately and without conditions,” it added.
The arrest has raised speculation that Russia may want a prisoner swap like the one last year in which Russia released US basketball star Brittney Griner, who had been arrested over traces of cannabis found in her possession.
She was exchanged for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer imprisoned in the United States.
US ENVOY SAYS GERSHKOVICH ‘IN GOOD HEALTH’
US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, said she found journalist Evan Gershkovich “in good health” when meeting him in prison for the first time after his arrest on spying charges.
“I visited The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich today at Lefortovo Prison -- the first time we’ve been permitted access to him since his wrongful detention more than two weeks ago,” the embassy quoted her as saying on Twitter.
“He is in good health and remains strong,” she added.
Gershkovich is due to appeal his detention on Tuesday, local time.
The American has been charged with espionage and faces up to 20 years in prison. Moscow accuses him of trying to obtain classified defence information for the US government.
The reporter, The Wall Street Journal and US officials vehemently deny the allegations.
His case is classified, which limits the information available to the public. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden called Russia’s imprisonment of the Wall Street Journal journalist “totally illegal” and told his family he was working to secure his release.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov last week reiterated Russia’s stance that any exchanges could only be decided after a court delivers a verdict.
REPORTER PENS LETTER TO FAMILY
Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist charged with espionage in Russia, said he is “not losing hope” and joked about prison food in a first letter to his family.
“I want to say that I am not losing hope,” the 31-year-old wrote in Russian to his Philadelphia-based family, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
“I read. I exercise. And I am trying to write. Maybe, finally, I am going to write something good.”
In the handwritten letter to his “dear family”, Gershkovich also teased his mum about the food in Russia’s prison.
“Mom, you unfortunately, for better or worse, prepared me well for jail food,” Gershkovich joked.
“In the morning, for breakfast, they give us hot creamed wheat, oatmeal cereal or wheat gruel. I am remembering my childhood.”
The letter was dated April 5 and received by the family nine days later, marking the first direct contact with the journalist since his March 29 arrest.
His parents on Friday said that they remained optimistic for a positive outcome to his detention insisting that their son “still loved Russia.”
“It’s one of the American qualities that we absorbed, you know, be optimistic, believe in a happy ending,” Gershkovich’s mother, Ella Milman told the Wall Street Journal, speaking out for the first time since his arrest.
“But I am not stupid. I understand what’s involved, but that’s what I choose to believe,” she added.
Ella and her husband Mikhail Gershkovich fled the Soviet Union separately in 1979 and settled in New Jersey, raising their two children, Evan and a daughter Danielle.
The spying charges against Gershkovich, who had previously worked for the Moscow bureau of AFP, are the first of their kind in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, prompting an outcry from media outlets, rights groups and foreign governments.
In the video interview, Milman said that Evan, 31, felt a responsibility to stay in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, one of the few remaining Western journalists to continue reporting in Moscow despite the dangers.
“I know that he felt like it was his duty to report … He loves Russian people. He still does,” she said.
Milman said that she thought some of her son’s recent reporting on the inner deliberations inside President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin caught the attention of authorities.
“The article that came out about Putin in December got me worried a lot,” she added.
Russian officials insist Gershkovich was “caught red-handed” when he was detained in Yekaterinburg in late March, some 1800km east of Moscow.
He has since been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison where he has yet to be granted consular access, with Moscow saying the question is still under review.
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Russia’s imprisonment of Gershkovich on spying charges “totally illegal” and told his family he was working for a release.
He and the Wall Street Journal have denied the charges against him.
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Originally published as Wall St Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich faces Russian court on espionage charges
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