A Moscow court has ruled that the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich must remain in pre-trial detention on espionage charges until at least late August, rejecting the American journalist’s appeal to be released.
Gershkovich appeared slightly pale and with longer hair after almost three months’ detention in Lefortovo prison in Moscow, which is reserved for targets of FSB investigations. He was smiling in some photos.
The US ambassador, Lynne Tracy, and a number of other officials attended the appeal hearing, which began on Thursday morning in the Moscow city court. Gershkovich’s parents, Ella and Mikhail, had travelled to Russia from the US to attend the hearing.
The ruling was broadcast to reporters, who watched it on two large TV screens in a separate room in the courthouse.
“Evan continued to show remarkable strength and resiliency in these very difficult circumstances,” Tracy told reporters afterward.
Tracy said she was “extremely disappointed” by the ruling, reiterating that Gershkovich was “an innocent journalist” and Russia’s charges against him were baseless. “Such hostage diplomacy is unacceptable, and we call on the Russian Federation to release him,” she said.
Gershkovich, 31, was detained in late March on espionage charges while on a reporting trip in the city of Ekaterinburg. He was accredited to work in the country by Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs.
Espionage charges against him are widely viewed as spurious and an effort to blackmail Washington into releasing Russian prisoners, including spies and financial criminals with ties to powerful figures in Russia. The US has declared Gershkovich to be wrongfully detained and called for his release.
American officials and analysts have pointed out that the US does not hold any prisoners who might be considered an equal trade for Gershkovich, and are concerned that Moscow may demand it puts pressure on other countries to release prisoners being held by them.
Those on a release wishlist could include spies held in Europe and South America or an alleged FSB hitman sent to assassinate a former Chechen militant in Berlin.
Gershkovich faces a lengthy pre-trial detention process while investigators gather their case, which is all kept secret. Espionage cases can take more than a year to come to trial and the Kremlin usually says it cannot interfere in an investigation and must wait until a verdict is issued to begin negotiations.
The most recent trade involving Brittney Griner, the WNBA basketball star, took nearly nine months to complete after her arrest on drug charges. But Paul Whelan, a former US marine who was arrested in December 2018 on espionage charges, remains in a Russian prison as Moscow and Washington have failed to find terms for a trade.
