A Russian court has sentenced American journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison on espionage charges, following a closed-door trial, Al Jazeera reports on July 19th. The 32-year-old Wall Street Journal correspondent pleaded not guilty, with both his employer and the U.S. government condemning the charges as fabricated.
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Judge Andrei Mineyev announced the verdict on Friday, sentencing Gershkovich to “16 years in a strict regime colony” as the reporter stood in a glass cage. Gershkovich was arrested on March 29th, 2023, during a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. Prosecutors accused him of gathering secret information about Uralvagonzavod, a tank manufacturing plant for Russia’s war in Ukraine, allegedly under orders from the CIA.
This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,
-Almar Latour, chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, along with the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Emma Tucker, made a statement.
Authorities have offered no public evidence to support the allegations against Gershkovich, with the Kremlin merely stating that he was caught “red-handed” spying on a tank factory in the Urals while working for the CIA.
He is the first Western journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia. Gershkovich, his newspaper, and the U.S. government assert he was simply performing his job, with accreditation from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The prosecution had initially sought an 18-year sentence from the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg. In Russia, closed trials are standard for cases involving treason or espionage with classified material. Gershkovich’s trial has moved swiftly since the initial hearing in late June.
We will continue to do everything possible to press for Evan’s release and to support his family.
Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until he’s released. This must end now.
-according to the statement from his employer.
Al Jazeera, Fox and agencies