Hearing in secret trial of falsely accused WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich brought forward
Proceedings initially scheduled to take place on August 13 are now slated almost a month earlier than originally scheduled after a request from Evan Gershkovich’s defense team.
Proceedings in the secret trial of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich are set to resume Thursday, almost a month earlier than originally scheduled after a request from his defense team, according to the Russian court where he faces a false accusation of espionage.
The 32-year-old American journalist has been imprisoned since March of last year, when he was arrested by the country’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, while on a reporting assignment in Yekaterinburg, around 900 miles east of Moscow.
Gershkovich, the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny the accusations against him. The U.S. has designated him as wrongfully detained and has called for his immediate release.
In a hearing in a Yekaterinburg courtroom at the end of June, Gershkovich appeared in a padlocked, transparent box, his head shaved on the orders of prison authorities.
After that hearing, which appeared to last more than two hours, the prosecutor, Mikael Ozdoev, said that the case against Gershkovich had begun and alleged he “performed illegal actions in secret.” Russian investigators haven’t publicly presented evidence to back up their allegation against Gershkovich. And Russia’s legal system offers few, if any, of the legal protections accorded in the U.S. and other Western countries. Acquittals in espionage cases are exceedingly rare.
The next hearing was initially set for August 13 but the court’s website on Tuesday showed it had been brought forward to July 18. According to a spokeswoman for the court, the decision to advance the hearing date was made after a request from Gershkovich’s defense.
“This is a sham trial that should never have taken place, just as Evan never should have been arrested,” the Journal said in a statement. “The sooner it’s over, the better.” The U.S. Embassy in Moscow didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It isn’t known how long a trial would last.
In June, Russian prosecutors approved an indictment of Gershkovich, falsely alleging that he was gathering information about a Russian defense contractor on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency.
In fact, Gershkovich, who was accredited as a foreign correspondent by Russian authorities, was in Yekaterinburg and elsewhere in the Sverdlovsk region for the sole purpose of reporting for the Journal.
Russia has indicated its openness to the possibility of a prisoner-swap deal that would send him home.
Last month, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, again raised the prospect of a prisoner exchange with the U.S. In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that he would be open to a prisoner swap for Gershkovich and others. He made clear reference to Vadim Krasikov, an FSB operative now serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a Chechen émigré in Berlin in 2019.
The U.S., which has called the proceedings against Evan a “sham trial,” has said it was working to release Gershkovich and other Americans held in Russia. “We aren’t going to negotiate in public,” a State Department spokesperson said last month.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, in June said Gershkovich “is simply being used as a bargaining chip,” along with another American held by Moscow, Paul Whelan, whom the U.S. also deems to be wrongfully detained.
Gershkovich is the first U.S. journalist to be detained in Russia on an espionage allegation since the end of the Cold War. His case is playing out against a background of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Whelan, a retired Marine, is serving a 16-year sentence following conviction on espionage charges that he, his family and the U.S. government say are false.
Previously, Gershkovich had been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, where Russia has held political prisoners since the days of the Soviet Union. He was moved to Yekaterinburg to be tried, marking the start of a new phase in the proceedings against him.
It follows more than a year of pretrial hearings and appeals by the journalist against his detention, including at least one failed request by his legal team that he be transferred to house arrest, agree to constraints on his movements, or be granted bail.
Espionage trials in Russia are opaque. Lawyers defending those on trial for alleged espionage are barred from disclosing information on the proceedings to outsiders.
Russian authorities are also holding the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, a dual Russia-U.S. citizen who was detained last year in the city of Kazan while visiting her ailing mother.
She was initially held on an allegation that she had failed to register as a foreign agent, and was subsequently charged with spreading false information about the Russian military in relation to a book she helped edit that criticizes the invasion of Ukraine.
Kurmasheva has denied the allegations against her through her husband, Pavel Butorin, and her legal team. The State Department has said that it continues to look at her case, that the Russian government has brought baseless charges against her and that it is deeply concerned about her detention.
Kate Vtorygina contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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