Russian court extends detention of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich

A Russian court has upheld the extended detention of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter deemed by the US to be wrongfully held.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a transparent box at the Moscow City Court on Thursday. Picture: AFP

A Russian court has upheld the extended detention of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter deemed by the US to be wrongfully held, ordering that he remain in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison until at least August 30, according to Russian state-news service TASS.

Gershkovich, smiling briefly and wearing a dark T-shirt and jeans, appeared in the courtroom inside a transparent box. Media outlets were allowed into the courtroom for a short time before being ushered out.

On May 23, a Moscow district court judge granted a request from the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, to extend Gershkovich’s detention while he awaits trial, a ruling that the reporter’s lawyers appealed.

Gershkovich’s parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, were present in the courtroom and stood next to the box ahead of the hearing. While waiting for the ruling to be announced, they spoke at length with Gershkovich, who smiled and gesticulated as they conversed.

In a phone call before their trip to Moscow, Ms Milman said they felt it was important to see her son in person and show that they are standing with him.

“I want to scream and say ‘Give me back my son,’” Ms Milman said in the call. “It’s very hard, but I will be there smiling. I will be smiling for Evan, and they are not going to see my tears,” she said.

The couple left the Soviet Union in 1979 to settle in the U.S.

They had also travelled to Moscow to be present at the May 23 hearing.

On Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters that the US had requested consular access to Gershkovich and “Russia is considering the request,” TASS reported. The US embassy in Moscow didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gershkovich, a 31-year-old American citizen who was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist, was initially detained by agents from the FSB while on a reporting trip in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on March 29. He is being held on an allegation of espionage that he, the Journal and the US government vehemently deny.

His pre-trial detention was initially set to expire on May 29. An earlier request from his lawyers that he be transferred to house arrest, agree to constraints on his movements or be granted bail was denied in April.

Legal experts say it could be many months before Gershkovich’s case is brought to trial, as investigators gather materials for trial. Under Russian law, investigators and prosecutors have wide latitude to request further extensions of a pre-trial detention.

Virtually all espionage trials in Russia end in a guilty verdict, and a conviction carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

The US government has designated Gershkovich, the first American journalist arrested on an espionage accusation in Russia since the end of the Cold War, as wrongfully detained and called for his immediate release. The designation unlocks a broad US government effort to exert pressure on Russia to free him.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted unanimously to approve a bipartisan resolution calling on Russia to immediately free Gershkovich. The congressional resolution also demands that Moscow provide him unfettered access to US consular officials during his imprisonment. It doesn’t have the binding force of US law, but it underscores congressional support for Biden administration efforts to free him.

A day after the House of Representatives resolution, nearly three dozen U.S. senators wrote a letter to Gershkovich, expressing their “profound anger and concern” over his detention by the Russian government.

US officials have said that a prisoner swap with Moscow is the most likely path to the release of Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American citizen detained in December 2018 on a similar accusation to that against Gershkovich. Whelan, who, like Gershkovich, is deemed by the US to be wrongfully detained, was sentenced in 2020 to serve 16 years in a penal colony.

Russian officials have said that Moscow could consider the possibility of a prisoner swap in the case of Gershkovich only after a Russian court issues a verdict in his case.

Russian authorities have defended the country’s legal system, saying that it offers stability and protection to all citizens, giving them equal justice under the law.

While Russia’s justice system normally guarantees the right to a jury trial in public, espionage trials are usually heard by judges behind closed doors, as in most countries, because evidence is often classified, meaning that Gershkovich’s case is likely to be tried in secret.

The FSB, without providing evidence, has said Gershkovich “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex”.

The Wall Street Journal